Time for Nature

“Exporting” Bisons to their historic range

October 4, 2004

Elk Island National Park of Canada

Wood bison is once again flourishing in some areas of its historic range, thanks to the population surplus in Elk Island National Park of Canada.
© Parks Canada / Lynch, W. / 09.90.10.01(57), 3/30/1987

Although hunting and habitat loss wiped out almost all the bison in North America more than a century ago, herds of plains bison and wood bison are flourishing in their historic range, thanks to the population surplus in Elk Island National Park of Canada . Since 1937, thousands of bison and more than 3,600 elk raised in the fenced refuge just east of Edmonton, Alberta, have been shipped to protected areas in Canada and the United States.

In 1980, 28 wood bison were transferred from Elk Island National Park to an area near Nahanni Butte in the Northwest Territories. A few more transfers has yielded a herd that now numbers 160. During the 1990s, surplus Elk Island wood bison were established and added to wild and captive herds on public lands in the Yukon, British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Restoring the harmony

Since 1937, bison raised in Elk Island National Park of Canada, have been shipped to protected areas in Canada and the United States.
© Parks Canada / Muir, R.D. / 09.91.10.01(01), 3/30/1967

Listed as threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the wood bison is an important part of the cultural heritage of First Nations peoples in western and northern Canada. Numerous government agencies, private citizens, First Nations groups and non-governmental organizations have been working together to reintroduce wood bison into western Canada.

Some of the herds containing Elk Island stock have become so well-established that Aboriginal communities in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories have been able to begin hunting wood bison after more than a century.

A living legacy

Only a few hundred plains bison were around at the close of the 19th century. Today, there are an estimated 7,500 plains bison in the world.
© Parks Canada / W. Lynch / 09.90.10.01(113), 3/30/1989

Elk Island has also become a supplier of plains bison to protected areas in Saskatchewan, helping to bring back this extirpated subspecies in Prince Albert National Park of Canada . Only a few hundred plains bison were around at the close of the 19th century. Today, there are an estimated 7,500 plains bison in the world. However, the Elk Island population and the wild herds established from them, are the only publicly owned bison in Canada that have been tested and found to be free of diseases and genetically pure.

Still not out of the woods

Disease is the greatest threat to free-ranging and captive bison. Bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis have taken their toll on wood bison herds in the Slave River Lowlands and Wood Buffalo National Park of Canada . Bison reintroduction programs depend on disease-free source herds such as the Elk Island populations. Conservation biologists in the park are working hard to keep disease at bay.

Call of the wild

Helping to restore endangered habitat can be as simple as donating ecologically sensitive land . Novelist Sharon Butala and her husband Peter discovered this when they donated their family ranch to the Nature Conservancy of Canada. That donation sparked the creation of the 13,100-acres Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Conservation Area , which today is home to 50 plains bison.

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