How many bison are there today

Once numbering in the tens of millions, they dominated the Great Plains landscape until the late s, anchoring a remarkable ecosystem that contained perhaps the greatest concentration of mammals on Earth.

That abundance was wiped out as settlers and the U. Bison were shot by the millions, sometimes for "sport," sometimes for profit, and ultimately to deprive Native Americans of vital resources. By fewer than 1, bison were left, and the outlook for them was bleak. Two small wild populations remained, in Yellowstone National Park and northern Alberta, Canada; and a few individuals survived in zoos and on private ranches.

Remarkably, a movement developed to save the bison and ultimately became a conservation success story. Some former bison hunters, including prominent figures like William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and future President Theodore Roosevelt, gathered the few surviving animals, promoted captive breeding and eventually reintroduced them to the natural landscape. With the establishment of additional populations on public and private lands across the Great Plains, the species was saved from immediate extinction.

By it numbered about 12, Bison remained out of sight and out of mind for most Americans over the next half-century, but in the s diverse groups began to consider the species' place on the landscape. Native Americans wanted bison back on their ancestral lands.

Conservationists wanted to restore parts of the Plains ecosystems. And ranchers started to view bison as an alternative to cattle production. More ranches began raising bison, and Native American tribes started their own herds. Federal, state, tribal and private organizations established new conservation areas focusing in part on bison restoration, a process that continues today in locations such as the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas and the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana.

By the early s, the total North American population had expanded to , , with about 90 percent being raised as livestock — but often in relatively natural conditions — and the rest in public parks and preserves. For scientists, this process has been an opportunity to learn how bison interact with their habitat.

Male bison grazing and bellowing in Yellowstone National Park. Bison feed almost exclusively on grasses , which, because they grow rapidly, tend to out-compete other plants. Bison's selective grazing behavior produces higher biodiversity because it helps plants that normally are dominated by grasses to coexist.

Because they tend to graze intensively on recently burned zones and leave other areas relatively untouched, bison create a diverse mosaic of habitats. They also like to move, spreading their impacts over large areas. The variety they produce is key to the survival of imperiled species such as the greater prairie chicken Tympanuchus cupido that prefer to use different patches for different behaviors, such as mating and nesting.

Bison impacts don't stop there. They often kill woody vegetation by rubbing their bodies and horns on it.

And by digesting vegetation and excreting their waste across large areas, they spread nutrients over the landscape. This can produce higher-quality vegetation that benefits other animals. Studies, including my own research, have shown that bison-induced changes in vegetation composition and quality grazing can increase the abundance and diversity of birds and insects in tallgrass prairies.

Bison also affect their environment by wallowing — rolling on the ground repeatedly to avoid biting insects and shed loose fur. This creates long-lasting depressions that further enhance plant and insect diversity , because they are good habitats for plant and animal species that are not found in open areas of the prairie. In contrast, cattle do not wallow, so they do not provide these benefits. It is hard to determine the ecological role that bison played before North America was settled by Europeans, but available evidence suggests they may have been the most impactful animal on the Plains — potentially a keystone species whose presence played a unique and crucial role in the ecology of prairies.

The return of the bison has generated a new industry on the Plains. The National Bison Association promotes these animals as long-lived, hardy and high-quality livestock. The group hopes to double bison numbers through its Bison 1 Million commitment, a program designed to increase interest in bison ranching and consumption.

Advocates cite health, ecological and ethical arguments in support of bison ranching. Bison meat is lean and has a high protein content.

Many bison ranchers are committed to ethical and sustainable ranching practices, which sometimes are lacking in modern industrial livestock farming. For that, said Cynthia Hartway, a conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, the species needs more large herds like the one found at Yellowstone.

Frozen embryos and in vitro fertilization could be another fix, although these solutions would exempt the existing herds from natural selection. Native bison are threatened in another way—over the decades, many were bred with domestic cattle to produce a bison species with more meat and a docile behavior.

A study using DNA markers found low amounts of cattle ancestry in conservation herds that were managed as pure bison herds.

Which brings us back to Yellowstone and the somewhat recent realization that the burly bison blocking traffic on the road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Tower Junction are more biologically important than the average tourist realizes: besides those bison there is only one other herd at a national park in South Dakota which researchers are reasonably confident is free of cattle ancestry.

For the future, continued conservation of the bison genetics that survived the 19th century, as well as protecting the opportunities for continuing wild bison evolution, remains a high priority for the ultimate recovery of the wild bison.

Order by stock part number ». Get Help EN. Eleven of these herds are owned and managed by the Conservancy and one herd is owned by a university that manages the TNC-university owned preserve. All locations are home to year-round resident herds totaling approximately 6, bison across , acres of native rangeland.

Bison is the correct term for the mammals in North America. Their full latin name is bison bison bison. Full-grown bison bulls stand about 6.

They rarely eat forbs, like wildflowers, but prefer young, tender grasses and can consume more than 30 pounds of grass air-dry weight in a day. Bison can jump 6 feet vertically and more than 7 feet horizontally. Bison can also run speeds up to 35 miles per hour. Wallowing is practiced by males and females of all ages. This behavior is important for grooming, sensory stimulation, alleviating skin irritation and even used in reproduction behavior.

Wallows also serve as water reservoirs making small ponds that become habitat for vertebrates and invertebrates. Bison rub against young trees to help shed their winter fur. This also helps prevent invasive trees from invading the prairie. The bison was named the state mammal of Oklahoma in and the national mammal of the United States in Historically, the bison's most important predator was the wolf. Wolves constantly followed the large herds singling out the old, incapacitated and very young animals.

Even solitary adult males were not exempt from an attack—grizzly bears could kill an adult bison. Mountain lions and coyotes were also opportunistic predators of the young calves.

Humans had their role to play too. The survival of many Native American tribes were closely tied to the bison herds. Beyond predators and human activity, one of the primary dangers for bison herds were iced-over rivers. Thousands of bison drowned, particularly in the northern United States, when the crushing weight of crossing herds caused the ice to give way. Since the wolf and grizzly bear are gone from the tallgrass prairies of the Great Plains region , humans must act as the predator.

Each year, the herds are roundup into corrals to receive annual vaccinations, weight checks as well as managing the herd size by culling individual animals. It isn't big enough and they wouldn't mix well with our neighbors' cattle. Take a trip in the Youtube time machine to watch a CBS news report covering the historic bison release featuring General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve as a critical part of restoration to the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Preserve visitors can usually see one or more small groups of bison by driving the mile bison loop. Still, they are wild animals with thousands of acres to roam and may be hidden by the rolling prairie terrain.

This herd has since grown and lives on more than 30, acres. The herd size in the summer swells to approximately 2, animals that includes the calves born earlier in spring. After the annual roundup each fall the overwintering herd size is approximately 2, individuals.

Order Yours Today. All young females who have not yet given birth, also known as heifer calves, are vaccinated against brucellosis and all incoming animals are tested for brucellosis and tuberculosis and quarantined before admission to the herd. Even though there is no substantiated evidence of bison to cattle transmission of brucellosis, many efforts are taken to ensure the herd remains free from these diseases.