Underground in a ring 4 miles in circumference, at Batavia`s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is the largest high-energy proton accelerator in the world.
Above ground in 6,800 acres of woodland and prairie is where the deer, fox and coyote play-and where buffalo roam.
Buffalo?
Actually, the proper term is bison. The American bison. Here on the grounds of one of the most sophisticated laboratories on the planet roam one of the more antiquated symbols of our past. As the flag flying above the bison barn proudly states, bisons are ”Real Americans.”
In fact, looking at the herd from behind the wire fence is like looking at a time warp. One is hard pressed to look at a buffalo and not imagine Buffalo Bill riding through a gigantic herd on some Wild West plain.
But these look like big, woolly cows. Don Hanson, Fermilab`s bison herdsman, took a visitor down to the herd in his pickup. The herd moved slowly to surround the truck looking for all the world like docile creatures hoping to be fed or petted.
Hanson laughed. ”They may look a bit like cattle, but let me tell you, I had to take everything I`d ever learned about cattle and throw it out the window. They are so unpredictable that if you got out of this truck I wouldn`t give you 10 cents for your life.
”I was charged last summer by that one over there, the one with only one horn,” he said. ”She had two then. Knocked me flat against the corral fence when I was doctoring her calf. Hit me three or four times, wouldn`t quit.”
Hanson`s assistants finally lured the bison away from Hanson, but he missed several weeks of work.
One of the bison made a sound like a muffled lion`s roar, sticking out a very black tongue. ”You might see a buffalo that looks tame at a rodeo maybe, but it`s really impossible to domesticate these animals.”
Hanson, who describes himself as an Illinois farm boy, looks the part:
blue jeans, a bit of snuff between cheek and gum, a feed store cap and scruffy boots. He has been working with Fermilab`s bison for 12 years, three as the main herdsman. His latest project was designing and building a bison-proof corral of 8-by-8s and 12-by-12s near the turn-of-the-century dairy barn that has been preserved and converted for bison care.
Fermilab owns 119 head as of the last calving season and grazes them on 90 acres near the edge of the accelerator ring. On the bison side of the road a sign reads, ”Danger. Keep Back from Fence.” Across the way, another sign says: ”Caution. High Radiation Area. No Access.”
Why does Fermilab keep a herd of bison?
Hanson adjusted his cap and replied: ”Well, back in 1969, our first director, Robert Wilson, was from out west; so he thought the bison would be a great idea, especially for all the foreign visitors we get. You know, the bison are such a part of American heritage. And I sort of see having them as a nice symbol. We`ve got the past, the present and the future all right here. The bison are the past, the lab is the present working on the future.”
But it`s not just the foreign visitors that love seeing the bison herd.
”Most people think you have to go to South Dakota to see a buffalo, but here we are. You wouldn`t believe the amount of people out here on weekends taking pictures, holding their kids up for a better view of the herd,” Hanson added.
Of course, such popularity also has its problems, Hanson said. ”Bison can probably push right through the fence if they got the mind to. And I cringe when I see somebody leaning over the fence with a handful of grass.”
He smiled. ”We used to have signs up as a joke that read, `If you`re going to cross this field, you better be able to do it in 9.8 (seconds)
because the bull can do it in 9.9.` But the safety officers thought we were actually encouraging somebody to try; so we took them down. Now we`ve decided we should put up an inside fence about 12 feet from the outer fence to keep the people from the bison and the bison from the people.”
Bison aren`t the only bit of fauna roaming the area. Fermilab`s acres offer cover for pheasants, foxes, coyotes, woodchucks and geese. In fact, Fermilab sometimes has problems with the thousands of geese that seasonally take up residence. And Fermilab is even encouraging the flora, too, by restoring much of the acreage`s prairie land to its original state with native prairie grasses.
But the bison are the only ”semi-tame” animal Fermilab keeps. And they are big. The biggest bull weighs more than a ton and stands 6 feet 6 inches at the shoulder. ”These animals hardly ever get sick,” Hanson said. ”Hot or cold doesn`t bother them. Now I know why there were millions and millions of them. They are tough.”
The herd is doing so well that this year Hanson will have a sale. He wants to keep the herd between 60 and 100 head.
”It`s a public auction. People come from all over the U.S., but mostly the buyers are private businessmen,” he explained. ”Buffalo meat is big business now, you know. It`s got about 3 percent cholestorol compared to cattle`s 23 percent. Heart doctors are starting to push it.”
But aren`t bison an endangered species?
”Not anymore,” he said. In 1900 only a thousand remained, but Hanson said today there are more than 70,000 bison in the lower 48 states and more in Canada and Alaska, which experts consider a healthy amount.
By the way, Fermilab`s bison do not glow in the dark. ”It`s amazing how many people ask me whether we do experiments on the buffalo, or whether we keep them because they are more susceptible to radiation leakage,” Hanson said. ”But neither is true.”
Of course, the average person`s questions about the nature and effect of Fermilab`s work are only natural, considering a good explanation of what they do is hard to come by: atoms smashed into particles called quarks and leptons that exist only for a ten-billionth of a trillionth of a second, magnets the size of small buildings and experimental equipment weighing thousands of tons going on for miles underneath the pastoral scene above ground.
”I think the best explanation,” said Margaret Pearson, Fermilab`s public information manager, ”is that Fermilab operates a particle accelerator which is essentially a giant microscope to study the nature of the universe by studying the structure of it in its smallest components, that of the atom. So don`t confuse the accelerator with a nuclear reactor. They are very different.”
Then she added, ”As for the radiation, everything is very safe. All the radioactivity is underground or under shielding. I think there`s a genuine misconception of the danger of radiation. We`ve learned so much about its role in nature since World War II.”
And the buffalo? ”People consistently ask what we use them for,” she answered, ”but really, they are not part of research; they`re incidental.”
Or as Don Hanson put it, ”The buffalo are just for fun.”
