HOT SPRINGS -- Wind Cave National Park's American bison herd has the distinction of being one of the only herds in existence that has no evidence of cattle DNA in its makeup.

Dan Roddy, the biologist in charge of the bison herd, said genetic testing by Texas A&M University has conclusively linked the park's bison to those living in Yellowstone National Park today.

And how that came to be, according to Hot Springs resident Johnny Suter, is the rest of the story.

Suter responded to stories published in the Oct. 11 Rapid City Journal, chronicling how the herds in Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park came to be.

"Those stories are absolutely correct," Suter said. Bison from the Bronx Zoo and from Yellowstone National Park formed the base for the future of the Wind Cave herd.

Scotty Philip is generally considered "The man who saved the buffalo," and gave the massive herd at Custer State Park its start.

"But what happened after the bison landed in Wind Cave -- how the herd became -- is kind of an interesting story, too."

Suter, whose given name is John Estes Suter Jr., is 82 years old. His father and namesake was wildlife manager at Wind Cave National Park from 1931 until 1944, a time when Suter Jr. says the culling of the herd laid the groundwork for the park's genetically pure bison.

"The animals from the zoo were pure," Suter said. "But I remember my father studying the herd when I was young and him saying that some of the herd looked different."

Suter said that managers of the park at the time turned over the management of all of the wildlife to his father, who came from a ranching background in Montana.

"If it was alive, he was to oversee it," he said. Elk, pronghorn, deer and prairie dogs roamed the park at that time, as they do today.

The elder Suter was charged with establishing a breeding herd of bison, as well.

The idea of "culling" less desirable animals was something new to him, and he knew little about the bison herd he had inherited, according to his son.

"So he studied them and he got some help from the only people that knew what the animals looked like decades earlier," Suter said, before they had become crossbred with cattle.

Oglala Lakotas from Pine Ridge traveled through the Black Hills every spring back then, stopping in towns and holding powwows, Suter said.

Before heading back to the reservation, the Lakota would journey to Wind Cave National Park, where they were permitted to kill a bull buffalo.

Suter is one of the only people alive who attended the ceremony and has photos of the ritual.

"I remember some of the older Sioux, eating the bison liver, with smiles on their faces," Suter said.

"Dad noticed that the oldest Indian, who was named White Cow Bull, was always treated with the most respect," Suter said. He said White Cow Bull was believed to have been in his 90s at the time, meaning he had been in the area when bison ruled the prairie and had seen the real thing.

"One year, Dad asked him to choose his bull for the following year," Suter said. "White Cow Bull chose what Dad considered his prize bull, the one whose offspring he had been keeping."

Suter said his father took that as a sign that his intuition had been correct and that his work at culling the less desirable traits had been right.

"The families that did the work in saving the bison, they deserve all the credit in the world," Suter said. "But when those bison were dropped here -- from the zoo and Yellowstone -- that was when the work establishing the breeding herds really started."