Guardians of the Buffalo: The Essential Guide to Bison Care - Softcover

Olson, Wes; Spencer, Cody

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1069953601 ISBN 13: 9781069953605

Publisher: International Buffalo Relations Institute, 2026

About this title

About the Authors

Wes Olson has worked in wildlife and landscape conservation for five decades. His career began in the Yukon in 1975, followed by wildlife surveys in northwestern Alberta, before he became a national park warden in 1981 - serving at Banff, Waterton Lakes, and Elk Island National Park, where he specialized in bison conservation for twenty-four years, and later Grasslands National Park. Since retiring from Parks Canada in 2012, he has worked with First Nations in western Canada to help return plains and wood bison to their ancestral lands. Wes is the co-author of Portraits of the Bison: An Illustrated Guide to Bison Society (University of Alberta Press, 2005), A Field Guide to Plains Bison (Timbergulch Press, 2012), and The Ecological Buffalo: On the Trail of a Keystone Species (University of Regina Press, 2022).

Cody Spencer is a buffalo rancher and regenerative land steward who has worked with bison since 2013. He is of Métis descent, a direct descendant of the buffalo-hunting peoples of what is now Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Cody discovered bison as a young man after reading Wes Olson and Johane Janelle's Portraits of the Bison - a discovery that led him to manage six distinct bison herds across southern Alberta and Texas. In 2016 he embraced regenerative agriculture, focusing on the restoration of land, animals, people, and finance through intentional bison management. Alongside Wes, he consults with First Nations, private ranchers, and conservation herds on bison restoration. Cody lives in Alberta's Rocky Mountain Foothills with his wife, their two sons, and a herd of plains bison.

Johane Janelle was born and raised in Cap-Santé, Québec, and moved west for a life of travel and adventure. Her career has spanned the Calgary Zoo, where she worked with birds of prey, and Canada's national parks, where her work ranged from bison handling to radio-telemetry tracking of trumpeter swans. Today her focus is conservation photography, providing photo documentation for biologists, conservationists, and researchers - including bison relocations in Russia, Alaska, and Banff. She has also collaborated with a First Nations group to produce their first-ever wildflower brochure in their own language. Johane is co-author, with Wes Olson, of Portraits of the Bison: An Illustrated Guide to Bison Society (2005), A Field Guide to Plains Bison (2012), and The Ecological Buffalo (2022). Her photography can be seen at www.johanejanelle.com.

Edition details

• Publisher: International Buffalo Relations Institute
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1069953601
• ISBN 13: 9781069953605
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 308