50 Fun Facts About Bison

The American bison's only living relative in its genus, the wisent, is native to which continent?

The wisent is the heaviest wild land animal on its home continent, just as the American bison is on its own.

In which year did the bison become the national mammal of the United States?

Kansas, Oklahoma and Wyoming had already adopted it as their state mammal.

Besides the plains bison, what is the other recognised American subspecies?

It is the larger of the two, with a taller, squarer hump, and accounts for most animals over 1,000 kg at Elk Island National Park.

Among wild bovids, the wood bison is outsized only by which Asian animal?

The bison is still the heaviest land animal and heaviest herbivore in North America.

How much did the heaviest wild plains bison bull ever recorded weigh?

Some bulls have been estimated at 3,000 lb, and a farmed semi-domestic animal reached 3,801 lb.

Roughly how many bison lived in North America in the late 18th century?

Their historic range, the 'great bison belt', ran from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico and east almost to the Atlantic.

By 1889, the bison population had fallen to roughly how many animals?

Commercial hunting, deliberate slaughter to undermine Plains tribes, and cattle diseases all contributed to the collapse.

According to nuclear DNA, which animals are the bison's closest living relatives?

The finding nests bison inside the genus Bos, which is why some taxonomists now list them as Bos bison.

Bison reached North America from Asia by crossing what?

They arrived only 195,000 to 135,000 years ago and diversified so fast that their arrival defines a geological faunal stage.

American buffalo descend from which extinct Pleistocene species?

Today's wood bison are the living animals most similar to it, which is why they were chosen for rewilding in Siberia.

What name is given to a bison–cattle hybrid?

Ranchers tried the cross during the 1880s bottleneck, found no hybrid vigor, and the National Bison Association now bans it.

The Sioux regard the birth of a calf of which color as a sacred event?

Such a birth is seen as the return of White Buffalo Calf Woman, who brought the Seven Sacred Rites.

How long is a bison's gestation?

A single calf is born and nurses until the next arrives, or for about 18 months if the cow is not pregnant again.

What is a bison's typical life expectancy in the wild?

In captivity they can reach 25, and hunted northern herds have produced cows that lived that long.

How fast can a bison run?

They look lethargic but easily outrun people, and gunshots do not startle them.

From 1980 to 1999, how did bison injuries to Yellowstone visitors compare with bear injuries?

Bison charged and injured 79 people over those two decades; bears injured 24.

Roughly how high can an agitated bison jump vertically?

That agility is why the most reliable bison fencing uses 20-foot steel I-beams sunk into concrete.

What is the shallow depression a bison rolls in called?

Rolling in dust or mud helps with shedding, biting insects and ticks, and the depressions boost prairie plant diversity.

Bison rub their horns on cedar and pine trees, a behavior thought to be linked to what?

The 'horning' peaks in autumn when insects are most numerous, and the aromatic trees release a scent that deters them.

What color is a newborn bison calf?

Calves stay noticeably lighter than adults for their first two months.

In which months do bison mate?

Dominant bulls 'tend' a cow by shadowing her and blocking her view of rivals, and bellow back at any challenger.

Which predator regularly preys on weakened bison, especially in late winter?

Calves have five known escape tactics, including running to the nearest bull or wading into a lake or river.

How does the US government officially classify the American buffalo?

The classification lets private herds be managed like livestock, and bison can interbreed with domestic cattle.

Of the six founding herds that survived the bottleneck, one was kept by which institution?

The other five were private ranch herds; all modern plains bison descend from an effective population of just 30 to 50 animals.

How many wild bison survived the bottleneck inside Yellowstone National Park?

Twenty-one animals from outside herds were added in 1902, and those founders supply 60 to 70 per cent of the herd's genes today.

About how many bison were in the Yellowstone herd in summer 2022?

It is one of the few public herds with no detectable domestic cattle genes.

Which rancher founded the Texas State Bison Herd in the 1880s with five wild-caught calves?

Every animal in the herd still descends from those five calves, which left it so inbred that models once gave it a 99% chance of dying out.

Custer State Park, home to about 1,500 bison, is in which state?

It is one of the largest publicly held herds in the world, though some question its genetic purity.

The Henry Mountains herd, one of the few with no cattle genes, roams in which state?

It was started with animals from Yellowstone and grazes mountain valleys up to 10,000 feet.

Elk Island and Wood Buffalo national parks, both with important herds, are in which province?

Wood bison from Elk Island were shipped to Yakutia in Russia from 2006 as part of a Pleistocene rewilding project.

The bison is the official animal of which Canadian province and appears on its flag?

The province was the birthplace of Terry Fox and the centre of Métis bison-hunting culture.

The bison appears on the official coat of arms of which organisation?

The Mounties were founded in 1873 to police the prairies, at the height of the bison slaughter.

The 'buffalo nickel' was minted from 1913 until which year?

A new bison design returned to the nickel in 2005 as part of the Westward Journey series.

Which of these is NOT a state with the bison as its official state mammal?

Montana's state quarter does feature a bison skull over a landscape.

Which state quarter depicts two bison?

The Kansas quarter shows a single bison and no writing at all.

In which year did Samuel de Champlain first apply the French word 'buffles' to the animal?

He had only seen skins and a drawing, shown to him by Nipissing traders who had travelled forty days to meet the hunters.

In Lakota, the word tȟatȟáŋka (tatanka) refers to what?

Plains languages use separate words for male and female bison, a distinction they do not make for elk or deer.

In which year was the Inter Tribal Bison Council formed?

It now unites 56 tribes in 19 states managing a collective herd of more than 15,000 animals.

Plains peoples are said to have found more than how many uses for the bison?

Hides became clothing and tipi covers, bones and horns became tools, and sinew was used for sewing.

What makes up the bulk of a bison's diet?

Their day runs in two-hour cycles of grazing, resting and chewing cud before moving to a fresh patch.

Why were bison brought to Santa Catalina Island, California, in 1924?

The herd has been isolated ever since, and genetic tests found it carries cattle genes like most private herds.

Pure bison were reintroduced in 2009 to the Janos reserve in which Mexican state?

A wild herd has crossed between that state and New Mexico since at least the 1920s.

Since 2006, wood bison have been established in Yakutia, a region of which country?

The animals came from Alberta's Elk Island National Park and were officially added to the regional Red List in 2019.

The last wild lowland European bison was shot in 1921 in which forest?

Captive animals were bred and released, and the same forest on the Poland–Belarus border now holds hundreds of wild wisents.

The European bison is a national animal of Poland and which other country?

The last of the Caucasian subspecies was killed by poachers in 1927, leaving only the lowland line alive, in captivity.

What does the 'Buffalo Commons' proposal call for?

Backers point to the Dust Bowl and decades of population loss as evidence that farming the dry shortgrass prairie is unsustainable.

Which senator said the bison 'paved the way for the railroads to the Pacific'?

Bison traces followed ridges and watersheds so well that Native trails, pioneers and then railways all adopted them.

Which mountain pass into Kentucky followed an old east–west bison trail?

Another heavily used trace crossed the Ohio River at the Falls of the Ohio and ran west to the Wabash.

The Nature Conservancy's easternmost bison herd, set up in 2016, is in which state?

The Kankakee Sands preserve sits in Newton County, in a town that happens to be called Morocco.

The word 'bison' comes from a Latin word for which animal?

English borrowed it from French in the early 1600s and first applied it to the American animal in the 1690s.