The Majestic North American Bison

The worst animal genocide in history and the greatest recovery from the brink of extinction

The American Bison, also known as the American Buffalo (Bison bison), is the Official Mammal of the United States. In addition to the American Bison, officially known as the Plains Bison, that inhabited much of the United States, the Wood bison (Bison bison athabascae), a subspecies of the American Bison, inhabited the boreal forest regions of Alaska, Yukon, western Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia, northern Alberta, and northwestern Saskatchewan.

The American Bison is the largest mammal in North America with weights ranging between 701 to 2,205 pounds (318 to 1,000 kg). The heaviest wild bull ever recorded weighed 2,800 pounds (1,270 kg) and, in captivity, the largest bison weighed 3,801 pounds (1,724 kg). These weights have never been confirmed and must thus be considered rumors. Most femailes will weight around 1,000 pounds and bulls generally 1600-1800, rarely over 2,000. They can stand at 6 feet to the hump. Despite their massive size, they are incredibly agile able to run at speeds up to 40 mph and jump 6 feet high from a standing position.

It is estimated that as many as 60 million American bison roamed the grasslands and plains of North America during the 19th century.

Collected Bison skulls give evidence of the senseless slaughter
(Click for larger picture)

The North American Plains Bison has always been an integral part of early American life. The bison was not only a spiritual animal for the Native American people, particularly the Plains Indians, but Native Americans also depended upon these animals for their livelihood. Every part of the animal was often used: the hides constructed shields, saddles, and moccasins; bison hair made sturdy ropes and stuffing for pillows, and warmth for robes. The brain was even used for the preparation of hides, which was then used for the construction of teepees. The stomach lining made great cooking vessels and the contents were used for medicinal purposes.

European explorers in North America saw the riches possible from bison fur and bison fur trading became a major industry with a fair number of trading posts appearing in the Great Plains. Buffalo hides were one of the major trade items from the plains brining between $1 and $3.50 each. Bison were hunted on foot, on horseback, and from trains for their tongues, hides, bones and little else. The tongue and the hump were (and still are) considered a delicacy. Hides were prepared and shipped to the east and Europe for processing into leather. The remaining carcasses were, for the most part, left to rot. When nothing but bones remained, they were gathered and shipped via rail to eastern destinations for processing into industrial carbon and fertilizer. Hearing of the amazing buffalo herds, wealthy hunters wanting to hunt the animals for themselves flocked to the Plains. Some hunters would shoot from the train as it passed the herds. This shooting did not supply any meat – it was just for sport.

Fur traders did their share to contribute to the Bison's demise. (Click for larger picture)

But the fur trade and other commodities from the Bison is only a small part of the story. The American government encouraged elimination of the Plains Indians' primary food source, the bison. The idea was to kill off the Buffalo to starve the Indians, force them into relatively small areas, or north into Canada – make their food source either scarce or non-existent. The results would be starvation and high infant mortality amongst the Indian populations that would pave the way west for European settlement and the start of the western beef industry. Columbus Delano, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior said in the early 1870's, "Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone. "The rapid disappearance of game from the former hunting-grounds must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs."

In the 1860's, the railroad needed fresh meat every day to feed the 1,200 railroad workers and the vast buffalo herds supplied the meat. The infamous Buffalo Bill once bragged that he killed 4,200 bison in seventeen months to feed rail laborers. Once the railways were built, large bison herds would sometimes cause lengthy train delays as the large herds crossed the tracks causing the rail companies to further promote the killing of the herds. When the monthly income average about $1,000, buffalo hunters were being paid $80.00 per day. The railways made it easy to devastate herd conditions and the railroad split the large bison herd into the southern and the northern herds. In just 40 years, from 1830 to1874, the southern herd was wiped out.

Massive amounts of Bison bones were loaded onto rail cars almost daily. (Click for larger picture)

In addition to the fur trade and paid hunters from the government and railways, European settlers and the beef industry caused the introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle, further devastating the bison herds. By the early 1880s there were only a few free ranging bison left.

After the great slaughter of the American bison during the 1800s, the number of bison remaining alive in all of North America declined to as low as 541, with as few as 300 in the United States. During that period, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from extinction. Had it not been for a few private individuals working with tribes, states and the Interior Department, the bison would be extinct today.

The genocide of the American Bison stopped and their recovery started in 1905 when William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park (now the Bronx Zoo), created the American Bison Society and a breeding program in 1905, and became its president. Theodore Roosevelt helped protect the remaining buffalo and accepted the position as the society's honorary president. George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream magazine, attempted to save the herd of buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. Other than city zoos, along with a few private herds of ranchers, Yellowstone Park became the only refuge for the last remaining specimens in the United States, and there were only 23 bison left!

On October 11, 1907, the first 15 bison to leave the New York Zoological Society breeding program boarded a train to cross the country to Oklahoma to bring Bison to the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge. "The Buffalo Train Ride", a book by Desiree Morrison Webber (ISBN: 1571682759) describes that journey. In 1913, the American Bison Society donated 14 bison to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota to restore a free-ranging bison herd.

The Yellowstone bison herd was estimated at 5,500 in August 2016 and included two sub-populations: the northern (3,152 to 4,042 animals) and central (1,451 to 1,639 animals) herds. (Click for larger picture) Source: National Park Service

Today, the National Bison Association puts the American Bison population at 400,000 animals with the goal of reaching 1 million within the next few years.

The United States Department of the Interior has been the primary national conservation steward of the American Bison herds on public lands and manages 17 bison herds -- or approximately 10,000 bison -- in 12 states, including Alaska. Yellowstone National Park is the only place in the U.S. where bison have continuously lived since prehistoric times. Although the original 23 remaining bison in Yellowstone were supplemented with approximately 25 bison from private Montana and Texas herds, Yellowstone's bison are the only pure descendants of early bison that roamed our country's grasslands. As of August 2016, Yellowstone's bison population was estimated at 5,500 -- making it the largest bison population on public lands.