Be prepared for the impact ofKen Burns’latest PBS documentary, “The American Buffalo.” It is not a dry history of the North American bison; it is an indictment of the very way the United States became the country that it is today.

By the time European settlers first came to America, there were tens of millions of buffalo roaming North America, nearly from coast to coast. For thousands of years their flesh had provided food, their hides shelter (for teepees), and their bones and tusks tools for Native Americans, who revered the animal and never killed more than they needed.

In less than a century, the species was threatened with extinction. With westward expansion came the railroads, and the kind of mass slaughter perfected by industrial nations. With the extermination of the buffalo came the threatened genocide of Native Americans, whose hunting grounds were destroyed and whose survival became a question.

Yet “The American Buffalo,” which aired Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 16-17, on PBS and is available atwww.pbs.organd the PBS app thereafter, is also a tale of hope, rehabilitation and moral evolution.

Burns aptly quotes the late Bay Area writerWallace Stegner: “We are the most dangerous species for life on the planet. Every other species, even the Earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy.”

It helps to think of the buffalo as a natural resource. When the Kansas Pacific Railway was laying track west, they hired William Cody to kill buffalo not only to clear a pathway for the tracks but to feed the workers. He was so good at it that he became known as “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

Later, buffalo hides became fashion accessories on the East Coast, and stuffed buffalo heads were required of any trendy saloon. Hides became as valuable as gold bars, and hunters left rotting carcasses by the thousands.

Interestingly, a push to help save the animal was spearheaded in part by those who had been avid hunters, including Cody, who made buffalo a centerpiece of his famed “Wild West” shows, and future President Theodore Roosevelt, later an avid conservationist. They and others formed an unlikely coalition with former Native American adversaries such as Sitting Bull and Quanah Parker, who emerges as the documentary’s most fascinating figure, to spur government action.

“The American Buffalo” — which is narrated by Bay Area actor and activistPeter Coyoteand features voice work by Adam Arkin,Tantoo Cardinal, Jeff Daniels,Hope Davis,Paul Giamattiand Derek Jacobi — istop-shelf Burns. It debuts the same week as Martin Scorsese’s“Killers of the Flower Moon”是在影院上映。处理许多的e same tensions between western corporations, the federal government and Native Americans.

At any rate, I have gained a new appreciation for the small bison herd thatlive in Golden GatePark. Their ancestors (the buffalo first came to the park in 1890) were part of the conservation effort. These magnificent, massive animals, which can run 35 mph and leap 6-foot fences, are a symbol of the tragedies and resilience of America itself.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com