Success is Possible - Bison Become National Mammal

North America's largest mammal was near extinction at the end of the 19th century. From millions to dozens, the bison (buffalo) herds that had covered the land from horizon to horizon were on the brink. This week the resurgent bison will become the United States' official National Mammal. It has been a long, strange road from near extinction to national symbol.

Bison were the life blood of the Indian tribes of the mid-American Great Plains. The settlement of the West was dependent upon the eradication of the Plains Indian tribes and the destruction of the bison was the cornerstone of U.S. government policy.

The U.S. Army led a campaign to wipe out bison as a way to control tribes. When some in Texas worried about the activity of hunters, Gen. Philip Sheridan, who commanded during the Indian Wars, responded, “Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated.”

Between the middle and end of the 19th century, the bison population was reduced from millions to perhaps a thousand individuals under the fitful protection of the the U.S. Army and a handful of private owners.

The army tried to protect a few dozen bison living in Yellowstone National Park, and about 1,000 more were owned privately. But other than that, “we fundamentally killed every bison,” said John Calvelli, WCS executive vice president of public affairs.

In 1896 William T. Hornaday, a founder of the American conservation movement, traveled to Montana to gather bison for an exhibit.

“Between the Rocky Mountains and the States lying along the Mississippi River on the west, from Minnesota to Louisiana, the whole country was one vast buffalo range, inhabited by millions of buffaloes,” he wrote, adding that their near-annihilation was due in part to “man’s reckless greed, his wanton destructiveness, and improvidence in not husbanding such resources as come to him from the hand of nature ready made."

A significant and comprehensive restoration effort was put in place and the bison was saved. Not in the millions that had filled the plains before the encroachment of human civilization, but in sufficient numbers to guarantee the continued existence of the bison in the wild.

Today, bison live in every state. The handful of bison that lived in Yellowstone National Park during the 1800s has swelled to roughly 4,900, and now officials are required to control the bison population. Culling has become a routine — and controversial — method to keep the bison numbers in check, as rules prevent relocating the bison to private lands.

An estimated 20,000 bison live on public lands in North America. An additional 162,110 live on private farms and ranches, according to the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture census.

It took a concerted and long term effort to save the bison. But, the results prove that such effort can achieve success in bringing species back from the brink of extinction. As humans we just need the will and determination to make these efforts.