Bison once roamed in herds of thousands across the North American western prairies until hunted to near extinction in both the U.S. and Canada. Now a native group in Montana wants to re-introduce them to the area they once called home.
They’ve just received some 89 animals, which are in fact actual descendants of the herd that once roamed their reserve lands.
It seems that over 100 years ago, a group of First Nations from Canada rounded up some bison in Montana and drove them across the border. In a somewhat convoluted cross-border history, the herd was grown from a few dozen to about a thousand but eventually sold to the Canadian government with the last shipment of the herd arriving in 1912. The animals (called buffalo in the US) were sent to Elk Island national park in Alberta where they have thrived and more importantly, remained genetically pure. (Many bison today are raised commercially for their meat and are interbred with cattle)
As a result of a deal signed in 2014 between American and Canadian tribes, some of the bison are being sent back to re-populate the large Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana.
This was not the first time Canadian bison have been sent to the U.S and this group will be joining existing animals on the Blackfeet reserve.
Quoted by the CBC, Stephen Flemming, the Superintendent of Elk Island, said, “This is a conservation herd that is disease free with pure bison genes.” said Flemming. “[They’re] really valuable, this is why everyone seeks our animals, We send out each year those animals we can surplus because we have a finite space.”
Harry Barnes, Chairman of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, said that growing the herd on the 4,000 square mile reserve will help young people reconnect with their culture which was so intimately tied to the bison.
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