The National Association of Student Anthropologists recently showed the documentary “The Buffalo War” at Binghamton University, a film which raises concerns about the decreasing number of wild buffalo in America.

The documentary was shown last Thursday by the Student Anthropologists and was sponsored by the Binghamton Political Initiative and the Binghamton University Graduate Student Organization.

The documentary began with a confrontation between a member of Buffalo Nation, an activist group against the slaughter of buffalo, and members of the Montana State Police.

According to experts in the documentary, buffalo are slaughtered annually on the public lands of Yellowstone National Park to prevent the transmission of a disease called brucellosis to domesticated cattle. The disease affects the birthing process of the cattle, causing an increased chance of miscarriage.

There are only 100 to 200 cases of brucellosis annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite these small numbers, hundreds of buffalo are captured each year in order to keep American cattle disease-free.

Despite information from the United States Department of Agriculture stressing alternatives to slaughtering buffalo, the state of Montana continues to kill these animals.

The barbaric and systematic killing of the buffalo are best expressed in the documentary by an interview with a rancher. Keith Munns of the Munns Ranch near the Yellowstone border said, “We don’t want to kill them, we just don’t want them here.”

According to Paulette Steeves, organizer of the “Buffalo War” screening and the founder and president of the Student Anthropologists, the reason for the buffalo genocide is more capitalistic than innocent.

“They don’t want buffalo where this is more public grazing land for cattle,” she said. “The public grazing lands are cheaper for them.”

The efforts of organizations like Buffalo Nation have slowly reformed buffalo sentiment on a federal level. In the documentary, experts said that pregnant female buffalo who test negative for bruscellosis are no longer murdered.

For Native Americans, the buffalo is a sacred creature.

“When the Buffalo die, we die,” Rosalie Little Thunder, a member of Buffalo Nation, said.

According to an inquisitor at the Anthropology Graduate Organization Ethics Conference on May 2, the implications of the buffalo genocide shadows the unethical treatment of Native Americans in anthropology.

A new report written by Brian Rose, a graduate anthropology student at BU, will detail the disconnect between the anthropologists on the field and the anthropologists writing the reports.

Currently one of the issues between Native Americans and scientists is that of burial remains. According to Steeves, it is essential for Native Americans to obtain the remains of their ancestors.

In reference to the ownership of the bones and the transfer of the remains, she said, “There’s not grandma or great grandma; everybody is a grandmother. They are responsible for being there for their ancestors, and they cannot be at peace until this is done.”

However, the resistance of anthropologists to return remains is not unfounded. According to Kenneth Weiss of the department of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, his refusal to return the blood samples of members of the Yanomami tribe of the Amazonian Rain Forest in South America stems from several reasons. Weiss cites the presence of parasites and disease as one.

Tribal rivalry is another factor. He wanted to prevent the blood samples from going to neighboring tribes.

“I don’t have good enough records to know what goes where,” Weiss said.

Despite these differences, Steeves claims Native Americans are not unapproachable for anthropological studies, but are “against non-consultation.”

“Over 580 tribes are recognized by the government. In addition, there are another 500 unrecognized tribes,” Steeves said in reference to the number of tribes in the United States. “There are people here that are Native American, but just don’t say.”

Zachary Ryan, a sophomore engineering major, reaffirmed this claim. He was unable to find any support for his Native American ancestry and said, “Native American student groups simply didn’t exist.”