Veryl Goodnight, NSS - Back from the Brink

This is the smaller version of the monumental sculpture Back from the Brink.

By 1878 the millions of buffalo that once blackened the prairies of West Texas were a thing of the past. For two years since settling their ranch in the Palo Duro Canyon, Colonel Charles Goodnight and his wife, Mary Ann, had heard the reports of the Sharps rifles day and night. The hide hunters were mercilessly slaughtering every bison they could find.

It was Mary Ann who revolted and persuaded her husband to protect the small number of bison that had sought refuge in a remote corner of the Palo Duro. Goodnight's cowboys roped two calves and brought them to Mary Ann to care for. These two calves and others that were captured later became the nucleus of the herd that saved the Southern bison from complete extinction.

Stock from the Goodnight bison herd was vital in bringing both the Northern and Southern herds Back From The Brink of extinction. Progeny from the Goodnight herd were distributed across the United States to help rebuild other herds including that in Yellowstone National Park. 

(Excerpted from Western Art Collector magazine, July 2011, page 148.)

Back from the Brink and Goodnight's own fostered buffalo calf, Charlie, are discussed in-depth in the artist's book, No Turning Back: The Art of Veryl Goodnight.