More than 30 million bison once roamed North America. Only about 50,000 now live in wild herds, leading ecologists to say the buffalo is “functionally extinct.” Will the nation’s mammal and a symbol of the West endure?   This story originally appeared in the Summer 2021 issue of Backcountry Journal. By Christine Peterson   Ervin Carlson was in his 20s when he saw a bison. The creatures were being brought back to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana, a place they’d lived for ...