American bison are on the rebound

Zeke Tapia
American Bison

Bison near Ratón.

Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 1:00 pm | Updated: 2:26 pm, Thu Oct 25, 2012.

by Steve Tapia |

American bison, also known as the American buffalo, is comprised of two subspecies, the plains bison and the wood bison. Plains bison is the one we are most familiar with.

Both species were hunted close to extinction during the 19th and 20th centuries, but have since rebounded. The American plains bison is no longer listed as endangered, but the wood bison is on the Endangered Species list in Canada.

In “American Bison; A Natural History” by Dale F. Lott (2003), we learn bison are nomadic grazers and travel in herds. The bulls leave the herds of females at 2 or 3 years of age, and join a male herd which is generally smaller than the female herds.

Mature bulls rarely travel alone. Both sexes reunite for the mating season toward the end of summer.

American bison tend to graze more and browse less, they favor head-butting as opposed to locking horns, and the American bison breed with domestic cattle more readily than wood bison.

The number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541 animals!

The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other species. That’s not to say that crossbreeding has not occurred in the past.

During the time that they were on the brink of extinction, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle and produced “cattleo” and “beefalo.”

Accidental crossings were also known to occur over the years.

Generally, male domestic bulls were crossed with buffalo cows, producing offspring of which only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any form of hybrid vigor so the practice was abandoned.

Wallowing is a common behavior of bison. A bison wallow is a shallow depression in the soil, either wet or dry, that bison roll in and cover themselves with mud or dust to groom themselves, get relief from skin irritation due to biting insects, and good all-around play or fun.

The bison’s temperament is often unpredictable. They usually appear peaceful, unconcerned, even lazy … yet they may attack anything often without warning or apparent reason — kind of like the State Farm TV commercial.

At the time bison ran wild, they were rated second only to the Alaska brown bear as a potential killer, more dangerous than a grizzly bear. In the words of early naturalists, “they were a dangerous, savage animal that feared no other animal, and in prime condition could best any foe … except for maybe wolves and brown bears.”

Knowing how many bison there were goes beyond casual curiosity. We can’t understand the ecosystem of primitive North America, or the magnitude of the human rearrangement of that ecosystem, without a good estimate of the primitive North American bison population.

Still, I have not found a “definitive” number in the literature, and believe me, I have looked. I have read anywhere from 30 million bison to 60 million bison in primitive North America.

It’s almost as though most authors fear taking a formal stance on the “original number of bison in North America,” or that we are just too embarrassed by the number.

Nevertheless, the book “Buffalo Nation; History and Legend of the North American Bison” (1982) chronicles with great detail the plight of the American Bison in America. We should not be embarrassed, but we should learn from our mistakes.

Steve Tapia is a retired wildlife biologist who worked 23 years with the U.S. Forest Service and four years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.







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