A letter from April:

Two summers ago, on our way to Yellowstone National Park, where my son and his wife are both interpretive rangers, we stopped at an obscure compound of buildings nestled against the foothills outside the west entrance of the park. I'd been hearing about the work of the people who live there, and was very excited to meet them, and see first hand what they were all about.

The Buffalo Field Campaign is a group of activists who are determined to stop the slaughter of bison that wander outside Yellowstone's boundaries. The slaughter is based upon the fear that the park bison, some of whom test positive for brucellosis, may transmit the disease to livestock. However, there has never been a single documented case of such transmission! Indeed, the science behind the transmission, and the fact that the cattle who summer on the land the buffalo wander on to in late winter/spring arrive weeks, sometimes months, after the bison have left, virtually guarantee it will not happen. The Buffalo Field Campaign was formed to stop this needless slaughter. Not only do their people work to educate the public about the reality of the situation, they are out in the fields from sunrise to sunset during the bitterly cold winters (when the buffalo are more apt to wander outside the park's boundaries, to look for food at lower elevations), trying to prevent the buffalo from leaving the park and documenting the hazing and slaughter that takes place when they do.

As someone whose visits to Yellowstone National Park began as a young child, I have long cherished the buffalo. And when I met this group of people fighting to protect America's last wild and free bison, I was so inspired by their passion and commitment that I vowed right then and there to write about it.

Buffalo Medicine is the story of a Montana ranch vet named Jed McCane. Jed's working on a vaccine for brucellosis - one that appears to be superior to the current vaccines; a vaccine that could wipe out the fear of this disease in cattle country forever. It never occurs to Jed that someone might feel threatened by this research, but then one night he has a terrible accident ... and from that point on, the world as Jed knew it ceases to exist.

In this book, I tried to bring to light the facts behind the buffalo controversy by weaving them into what I hope you find to be an exciting story. I also hope that once you read Buffalo Medicine, you'll share my outrage at the needless slaughter of one of this country's most precious treasures. Yellowstone's bison are the last descendants of the wild herds that once roamed the Great Plains of this nation - herds we wiped out in a blink of an eye. Legislation has been proposed to stop today's slaughter. You can learn more about the Yellowstone Buffalo Preservation Act by visiting the Buffalo Field Campaign website, a link for which is provided on my "Links" page. Please take a minute to voice your support for this important legislation. You might also want to check out the "News" page of my website, which lists additional sources of information on the bison controversy.

Please note: While a Buffalo Field Campaign exists in real life, the characters in Buffalo Medicine are fictitious. None of the novel's characters are based on individuals from the real Buffalo Field Campaign, and none of the actions portrayed in the book reflect actual activities of the real Buffalo Field Campaign. What the two entities--one real and one fictitious--have in common is their genuine love for the buffalo, and their courageous fight to protect it and stop the senseless slaughter.

Finally, on a personal note, I want to add that I grew up cherishing the time I spent on the Wyoming ranch of my grandfather, who also happened to be a veterinarian. He, in fact, was part of a team of veterinarians who worked decades ago to wipe brucellosis out in cattle country. My grandfather was my hero; a dedicated, fair and just man. I believe that were he alive today, he would passionately oppose the use of a myth about brucellosis to justify what's happening today just outside our nation's first national park.

I have admired and respected ranchers my entire life - their lifestyle, their love of the land, their commitment to values that would serve all of us well. I did not write Buffalo Medicine to indict them. I wrote it as a plea for sanity. For killing buffalo needlessly is surely not sane.

For the bison,

April

photo courtesy of the Buffalo Field Campaign