The Abundance Of Bison

1846 CE - 2022 CE

“Between the Rocky Mountains and the states lying along the Missippi River on the west, from Minnesota to Louisiana, the whole country was one vast buffalo range, inhabited by millions of buffaloes… One could fill a volume with the records of plainsmen and pioneers who penetrated or crossed that vast region between 1800 and 1870, and were in turn surprise, astounded, and frequently dismayed by the tens of thousands of buffaloes they observed, avoided, or escaped from. They lived and moved as no other quadrupeds ever have, in great multitudes, like grand armies in review, covering scores of square miles at once. They were so numerous they frequently stopped boats in the rivers, threatened to overwhelm travelers on the plains, and in later years derailed locomotives and cars…”

- W.T. Hornaday, 1889

WHAT YOU CAN DO

  • Support genetically pure free-ranging bison herds and open up migratory corridors.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Visit:

Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Image: Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co. Roosevelt, king of herd, at bay, and Carrie Nation, dehorned. Yellowstone National Park United States Wyoming, ca. 1907. Photograph.