If we had a living bison on campus, more people would come to football games.

This is an idea I have believed in since my first year on campus, and I’ve heard many people echo the desire for a real Bucky the Bison. And it turns out that we actually did have a live bison once! Shoutout to my home area of Allentown, where a then-Bucknell parent, John Shumberger, donated a living bison to campus in 1946. Unfortunately, while everyone loved Bucky (yes, he was named Bucky back then, too), he was not healthy and passed away after only one season. 

But this was just a problem in the 1940s because plenty of healthy bison live in captivity in Pennsylvania now. There is a park four hours from campus that has a dozen bison. There are bison on reserves two hours from campus. If we could just dedicate time and resources to properly caring for a bison, it would be worth it. 

Professors at Emory University’s Business School found that having a live mascot generated about $8.5 million for schools. Think about all the extra tickets that would be sold for home football games if people got to see a live bison. Of course, it will cost us money to take care of Bucky, but Leo and Una (lions at the University of North Alabama) cost less than $1 million so we would still be bringing in money. 

This could also be an opportunity for animal behavior majors to get more experience with larger mammals if Bucky needs any attention. And PETA definitely raises good points about how live mascots can be overstimulated and neglected, but not only does Bucknell have the resources to properly care for Bucky,  we should also keep in mind that Bucknell is a relatively small liberal arts institution. Our football games would not be quite as loud and overstimulating as a University of Texas game is for their Texas Longhorn Bevo. 

2026 will be the 80th anniversary of our last attempt at having a live mascot. This is the perfect time to make arrangements for Bucky to return. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium, so let’s prove that students will go to football games and that even more would come if we had Bucky there, too. Of course, there is this weekend’s home football game, but on Oct. 19, we have our homecoming game against Cornell, and the stadium will be 100 years and one day old exactly. So let’s all show up and prove why we deserve a bison on our campus!