Restoring Gene Flow Across America's Bison Herds

Today, the Department of the Interior (DOI) supports 19 bison herds in 12 states, for a total of approximately 11,000 bison over 4.6 million acres of DOI and adjacent lands. The 2020 DOI Bison Conservation Initiative includes 5 goals. The graphic on this page details the Genetic Conservation goal - a DOI commitment to an interagency, science-based approach to support genetic diversity across DOI bison conservation herds.

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Power of Diversity

Genetic diversity provides the foundation for animals to survive and reproduce in different environments. By ensuring that a wide variety of genes are spread among herds living in many different landscapes, bison will have enough genetic diversity to adapt and thrive as environmental conditions change over time.

Genetic Conservation

Bison, also called the American buffalo, once roamed in large herds across vast areas. These herds historically migrated and mingled with other large herds across North America, ensuring gene flow and high genetic diversity as bison moved across diverse landscapes. By the mid-1800's, only about 1000 bison remained, putting this iconic species at risk from inbreeding.

More than a century of recovery efforts have allowed bison to come back from the brink, and the Department of the Interior (DOI) now oversees approximately 11,000 bison in 19 herds across 12 states.

With support from multiple partners, including states, tribes, and other conservation organizations, DOI is committed to a science-based approach to manage DOI bison herds together. By strategically restoring gene flow, we will re-connect these herds across today’s fragmented landscapes to conserve genetic diversity and help restore bison as native North American wildlife.

Where Appropriate, DOI Will:

• Make strategic transfers of bison among DOI herds to restore gene flow and conserve genetic diversity
• Work with partners to increase the number of DOI bison to further protect against inbreeding
• Allow the forces of natural selection to operate across the largest possible genetic and geographic scales to support evolutionary processes and adaptation to help keep bison wild

Image caption: Bison at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado. Photo by Jim Carr, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.