From bumper bars and stubby coolers to sporting codes and front page news stories, the hoofed and heaving buffalo almost rivals the saltwater crocodile as the Top End's unofficial mascot.

Unlike the crocodile, the buffalo is today widely considered to be an introduced pest, although that has not stopped the iconography.

"[The buffalo] does seem to consume a fairly large part of our collective imagination," Matthew Stephen from NT Archives said.

Wild buffalo graze on Top End pastures. ( Matt Brann )

The buffalo was introduced to the Territory at the beginning of Top End colonisation, with it first appearing on Melville Island in 1825.

The colonisation of the Coburg Peninsula near Darwin between 1828 and 1849 saw more of the animals arrive.

"They were introduced both as a beast of burden but also one that could produce meat and milk," Dr Stephen said.

"The Europeans didn't last as long as the buffalo. The buffalo was a lot more adaptable than the first whitefellas were."

As the European settlements waxed and waned, buffalo thrived in the tropical and vast plains of the Top End, with early colonists remarking on their prevalence.

"There was a lot of waxing lyrical about buffalo herds on the plains," Dr Stephen said of early documents he had cited.

"I think there was a strange sort of imaginary link with the wild west and the bison herds.

"There were many commentaries in early colonial expeditions saying there was lots of buffaloes here and there and let's shoot them, which of course was a very colonial thing to do."

Banjo Paterson's buffalo poems

By 1875 buffalo horns were being exported, with the animal at the core of both an industry and a game sport by the 1880s.

"The buffalo hunters became the iconic Territory character," Dr Stephen said.

"To the extent that Banjo Paterson, Australia's great writer from the turn of the century and thereabouts, came to the Territory [in 1898] and, of course, had to spend some time with buffalo hunters to see how the real men of the Territory lived."

One of Paterson's resulting poems was titled Buffalo Country:

Out where the grey streams glide, Sullen and deep and slow, And the alligators slide, From the mud to the depths below, Or drift on the stream like a floating death, Where the fever comes on the south wind's breath, There is the buffalo.

"The reports would indicate that [Banjo] did go out and have a crack at hunting, but I think he enjoyed being with buffalo hunters more than buffalo hunting," Dr Stephens said.

"These were larger-than-life characters."

Buffalo are still an industry today in the Top End. ( Carl Curtain )

Among the turn-of-the-century buffalo hunters were Paddy Cahill and Joe Cooper, the latter who had a government contract to shoot the animal on Tiwi and was dubbed 'The White Maharajah of Bathurst Island'.

"It's an image that always sticks with me," Dr Stephen said.

"Buffalo hunting from horseback was the main means of killing these beasts out on these plains. Basically they rode up alongside of them, stuck a gun in the middle of their back and broke their back.

"In my mind it was a pretty cruel exercise, but I guess you had to bring them down somehow."

Buffalo trade reached its peak in 1913 when it was valued at £7,262, more than $800,000 in today's money.

Buffalo skulls are still prominent on bull bars and as art objects today. ( 105.7 ABC Darwin: Emilia Terzon )

Crucial to this coloniser-led meat, skin and horns industry were Indigenous people across the Top End with hunting skills and the knowledge to dispatch and skun the animal on the spot.

"The industry wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the Aboriginal labour force, both men and women. Women seemed to do a lot of the heavy lifting," Dr Stephen said.

By the 1920s, the industry was so successful at its own game that an administrator's report stated: "The buffalo is fast becoming extinct on the mainland."

Buffalo translates to sporting codes

Despite the extinction warnings, the Top End buffalo continued to breed and hunting it continued on as a popular renegade sport up to World War II.

Although commonly seen as a docile bovine, when provoked or chased the buffalo can be very aggressive and hunting it would have been a challenge in those earlier days.

By the 1950s it was starting to be seen as a pest, with the administrator calling for the extermination of buffalo due to them using up valuable cattle ranges.

Buffaloes rugby league blazer pocket for the 1955 state team. ( Supplied: NRL NT )

Interestingly, during this same era of the buffalo being dubbed a pest, it also started to widely appear as a sporting mascot.

While Darwin Buffaloes Football Club had been called such since 1927, it was in the 1950s that the animal started being used as a representation of the Territory for basketball and footy teams travelling interstate.

One prominent example included a rugby league team that travelled to Perth in 1956 and gave telling presents to the carnival's organisers.

"They gave two them two things which says a lot about the Territory, both then and perhaps now," Dr Stephen said.

"It was a set of buffalo horns and a painting by Albert Namatjira. I thought that was extraordinary."

NRL Western Australia has been contacted about the items, however they have no knowledge of either.

By the 1970s, widespread culling programs were being put in place.

"When I first came to the Territory in the '70s, I was fascinated by a ABC 7:30 report with shooters from helicopters showing how adept they were at shooting buffalo," Dr Stephen said.

The same continues today, with ranger groups in Arnhem Land going to great lengths to cull buffalo which threaten the native landscape with their heavy hooves.

Despite this effort, in regions like Maningrida alone there are an estimated 20,000 head of buffalo, with numbers exponentially growing since the 2000s.

Most agree that despite control efforts, the animal is here to stay.