Rather, it’s another of Burns’s deeply humane studies, about how the species was nearly wiped out through a mixture of human greed and stupidity, plus the effects of the 19th century’s great move westwards in the US and of the spiritual connection that many Native Americans feel for the animals (some tribes’ existence was closely aligned to buffalo, which provided food, shelter and clothing).
This isn’t a nature film, even if we do learn some interesting facts about the big beasts, described by narrator Peter Coyote as “a souped-up hot rod of an animal hiding in a minivan shell” – not least that they can run at speeds of up to 35 mph. Acclaimed documentary film-maker Ken Burns (The Vietnam War, The US and the Holocaust) turns his camera to America’s largest mammal, bison.
