Bison Connect Us

Bison on horizon

USFWS-Dave Fitzpatrick

Each April, around National Park Week, bison face the fickle nature of early spring as they give birth to their calves. These baby bison, with their hooves beneath them, mothers beside them, herd around them, and their first year of life ahead of them, are symbols of resilience, community, hope…and Connected Conservation.

Bison connect us to our past, present, and future. The near decimation of the species during the 1800s unraveled fundamental ties between bison, grassland ecosystems, and indigenous peoples’ cultures and livelihoods. Recovery from these deep injuries began in the late 1800s with a handful of individuals independently saving the last surviving bison, a pivotal chapter eventually recognized as America’s first wildlife conservation success of bringing a species back from the brink of extinction. Dedicated restoration efforts in the 1900s bolstered bison numbers and expanded our understanding of bison ecology and management. Perhaps most importantly, restoring bison to our lands and lives has taught us important lessons in working together, building relationships, engaging in respectful dialog, and developing trust.

This year’s cohort of bison calves born on federal lands are the newest inspiration for the US Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bison Conservation Initiative (BCI). The DOI is entrusted with the management of approximately one third of North America’s wild bison. Your National Park Service (NPS), US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands support ~11,000 bison in 19 herds across 12 states. Together with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the US Geological Survey, these DOI agencies fortified commitments to bison conservation and shared stewardship via a renewed vision for the BCI, in pursuit of the following goals:

• Wild, healthy bison herds

• Genetic conservation

• Shared stewardship

• Ecological restoration

• Cultural restoration

Since its adoption in May of 2020, the BCI has implemented several actions in support of these goals. For example, Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge transferred five bison to Theodore Roosevelt National Park for the specific purpose of increasing genetic diversity of that park’s bison herd. Theodore Roosevelt and Badlands National Parks donated 50 bison each on the Wolokata Buffalo Range to establish a new tribal bison herd on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, in collaboration with the Tribes’ economic development arm, its lands division, and the World Wildlife Fund. These shared stewardship activities compliment the decades of annual donations of hundreds of DOI bison to scores of tribes through the InterTribal Buffalo Council for distribution to their member tribes in support of restoring bison to tribal traditions and diets. The BCI reinvigorates previous stewardship efforts and further highlights an unprecedented degree of coordination, open communication, and cooperative planning with states, tribes, and other conservation partners to collaborate for ecological and cultural restoration of American bison.

Bison represent much more than just our designated National Mammal, an embossment on the NPS arrowhead and the DOI seal, and the myriad of ancient and modern icons of strength and wildness that we revere all around us. Bison are ambassadors of Connected Conservation, bringing us together to heal from our past and nurture our connectedness to wildlife and wild landscapes, and ultimately to each other, today and into the future. May we together benefit from the wisdom, awe, and respect that this majestic animal, our largest North American land mammal, offers us.