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Episode 1

The Great American Buffalo Series 1
Episode 1 of 2

Ken Burns recounts how the collision between two opposing views of the natural world saw the buffalo, which had numbered in the tens of millions, driven to the brink of extinction.

For thousands of years, America’s national mammal numbered in the tens of millions, sustaining the Native people of the Great Plains, whose cultures became spiritually intertwined with the animal. By the 1880s, the buffalo had been driven to the brink of extinction by newcomers to the continent. Ken Burns recounts this collision.

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1 hour, 52 minutes

Last on

Tue 22 Apr 2025 23:45
BBC Four

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Credits

Writer Dayton Duncan
Producer Julie Dunfey
Producer Ken Burns
Narrator Peter Coyote

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