For over 15 years Cris Mulvey has worked in the education sector. She began her professional life as a teacher and then became involved in development and community education before moving to Combat Poverty as a consultant. She joined the national adult education organisation AONTAS in 1992 where she was involved in the NOW (new opportunities for women) education programme.

In January of last year she began a year's sabbatical. "I was a bit of a workaholic," she says. "I tended to work very long hours seven days a week and I suppose it eventually caught up with me and I felt burnt out. I needed to get away and do something completely different.

"The pull factor for leaving Ireland was Montana. I had been there on holiday and had been totally captivated by the mountains and the sheer wildness of the landscape. I had always loved the outdoors, but that side of me hadn't been expressed for years and something was pulling in that direction. I felt I needed time to reflect and to take stock of my career and I was drawn back to Montana by the energy and wildness of the landscape there."

Mulvey was also attracted by the opportunity to pursue her interest in native American culture as Montana (which is about seven times the size of Ireland but with less than a third of the population) has a number of native American reservations.

As it turned out, Mulvey's plans for her sabbatical were shaped by her decision to become involved in the Buffalo Field Campaign. The aim of the campaign is to stop the slaughter of wild buffalo by powerful farming and ranching interests. The farmers claim that the buffalo carry brucellosis which endangers their livestock and livelihood, but this is hotly disputed by wildlife and environmental groups who say that there is no evidence to support the claim. The issue has inevitably become entangled with local politics and Mulvey says there is complete polarisation between business interests on one side and wildlife groups and environmentalists on the other.

"The activist in me was horrified by what was happening to the wild buffalo and I ended up working for the campaign full-time," says Mulvey who is a former Greenham Common protester. The campaign is staffed by a core group of about 20 volunteers who live in very basic accommodation near the buffalo's snowy winter habitat. Temperatures are regularly minus 30 degrees and the volunteers' working day starts before sunrise when the first patrols go out to check where the buffalo are resting. If the animals stray onto "unfriendly" land they are likely to be shot. Campaigners stay with the herd all day and try to shepherd straying buffalo back into the park.

"The problem is that Yellowstone Park does not provide sufficient range for the buffalo in Winter when the snow gets very deep and they have to come down from the higher elevations to eat," says Mulvey. "The animals leave the protection of the park to forage and end up on land where their survival and the interests of local business and politics clash. During the winter of 1996/7 over 1,000 buffalo were slaughtered."

Mulvey admits that swapping life behind a desk for one in the great outdoors was a bit of shock to the system - but a welcome one. "It's a very demanding life both physically and emotionally, but I am really enjoying being part of this campaign," she says. "I work with a fantastic group of very committed people and I'm physically fitter than I've ever been in my life. It's very distressing when animals are killed but we have to keep going. Mankind cannot be allowed to simply wipe out another species because it doesn't suit him to have them around.

`I think that being here has convinced me more than ever that humans are just one part of the overall natural equation. When you live in a city where people are in control it's very hard to conceive of other forces existing except in a very peripheral way. But out here you're just one element and you're in a world where your control is a lot less secure and where the weather and the landscape - beautiful as it is - can kill you.

"These buffalo are the last remaining wild buffalo in the US. They are the only survivors of the buffalo slaughter of the last century when 80 million buffalo were shot in order to deprive the Plains Indians of their livelihood. They are a crucial herd because of the knowledge they carry in their genes about survival. The herd now numbers around 2,000 which is dangerously small from the point of view of genetic diversity if the killing continues."

The campaign's buffalo patrols operate between November and May and during the summer months the campaigners conduct an education programme at Yellowstone and outreach centres. While initially Mulvey had only planned to stay away from home for a year, the pull of the campaign is such that she is staying on. She has just been appointed to a one-year fundraising position and she is hoping that the money raised during this time can be used to put the campaign on a more permanent and professional footing.

Mulvey says that one of the advantages of moving to Montana has been the space it's given her to write creatively. She used to write fiction and poetry but this had fallen by the wayside as work took over her life. "I found it very hard to write in a city environment where there is always something happening and you're coping with all sorts of pressures," she says. "In Montana life is harder in one way but simpler in many others and I find it conducive to writing.

"What I miss most are the people back home. I have made friends here but it's not the same as falling into an easy conversation with someone you've known for 20 years. Initially I felt I knew America and how Americans are. I think we all do because of television. But it's a very superficial knowledge and it took a while for me to see the differences. They are neurotically positive in a way Irish people are neurotically negative and I prefer the positive approach, but they are not good at dealing with emotional depth whereas we still have the capacity to reach out to people in distress."

Contact Point: Cris Mulvey would welcome enquiries from Irish people interested in the Buffalo Field Campaign. The campaign's website is http://www.wildrockies.org/buffalo or it is possible to e-mail her at buffalo@wildrockies.org