By SARAH B. AUBREY
Indiana Correspondent

WOLCOTTVILLE, Ind. — Talk about the power of networking – and of the Internet – when it comes to uniting people from thousands of miles apart!

This is the story of Bentley and his owners, Peter and Erica Cook, farmers from Wolcottville. The Cooks, who raise some 300 head of buffalo in Indiana, did not expect such a dramatic outcome when the local Fox news affiliate called to do a story about a bottle-fed buffalo calf.

The five-month-old buffalo named Bentley had been an orphan since his mother died of a uterine prolapse just after giving birth to him this spring. The Cooks have been raising him by hand ever since.

After the farm was featured on South Bend’s Fox 28 Morning News last month, the National Bison Assoc. (NBA) included the coverage in a weekly update viewed by members around the country. Apparently, members of the West Texas A&M University Herdsmen, a student group that is an affiliate member of the NBA, watched the broadcast and contacted the Cooks’ Bison Ranch in northern Indiana about Bentley.

David Carter, executive director of the NBA, said that student members such as the Herdsmen at WTAMU have been a focus for the organization.

“We have a real need to bring in new members and producers. (WTAMU Herdsmen) take care of the bison that is their mascot at school,” Carter explained. “They have a real love of livestock and like most folks, once you get around bison, you fall in love with the animal.”

The Cooks, who took over the management and grew Peter’s grandfather’s original 87 acres to 980, started with buffalo as a way to diversify a small farm. They now operate a thriving agritourism venture and a meat business that sees some 3,000-4,000 visitors through the farm gate each year.

When the students called about Bentley, the Cooks were happy to work with them.

“The students had never had a bottle-fed bison that was raised this way and was friendly from the beginning,” laughed Peter, as he explained that typically, the WTAMU Herdsmen acquire a buffalo that is about a year old and break him to lead at a larger size. Those buffalo are usually range-raised and not quite yet domesticated.

Five of the Herdsmen, who drove with their advisor, picked Bentley up in September and took him back to campus where they will work with him for about a year before he makes appearances at football games and parades. Carter believes this opportunity is positive for the industry.

“The growth of the bison industry is vital to meeting growing demand for meat, and attracting young people to become producers is a big part of this push,” he said.

In effect, Bentley the buffalo calf, like other “kids,” went off to college this fall. “It’s both exciting and sad at the same time,” said Erica. “We know he will get a lot more attention there.”