Few days go by that I don’t hear from some Texas yahoo about the futility of conservation, especially attempts to save sustainable populations of animals near or teetering on the brink of extinction.
American bison galloping. Photos by early motion-studying photographer Eadweard Muybridge, first published in 1887 in Animal Locomotion. Wikipedia image
Conservation works. Conservation works in Texas. How can they ignore stories like this one, about the conservation of the plains bison, at Texas’s Caprock Canyon State Park?
This film from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department illustrates and discusses the work going on at Caprock Canyon SP to keep a herd of bison there healthy and reproducing:
Published on Feb 1, 2013
Caprock Canyons State Park in the Texas Panhandle holds the last remnants of pure Southern Plains Bison that once numbered in the millions on this land. Watch as this historic herd is restored to its native habitat. For details on visiting the park, see http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/state-par…
If we had a national mammal, is there much doubt the noble American buffalo would be it?
Defenders of Wildlife range map, showing where to find bison in North America. DoW said: Bison once roamed across much of North America. Today bison are ecologically extinct throughout most of their historic range, except for a few national parks and other small wildlife areas. Yellowstone National Park has the largest population of free-roaming plains bison (about 4,000), and Wood Buffalo National Park has the largest population of free-roaming wood bison (about 10,000).
You can see that conservation is not easy, that serious conservation of animals takes cooperation between governments, federal, state, county and local. Throw in migratory birds, and you’re talking international efforts.
But it’s worth it, at least to me. Wholly apart from the direct benefits to humans — the discovery of drugs like digitalis and tamoxifen, for example — we learn so much about how the planet operates, how nature operates. We get a view into the ideas of God, if not a direct view into the universe’s creative mind.
There are two recognized subspecies in North America: Bison bison bison and B. b. athabascae. We have populations saved in small plots across the U.S.: In and around Yellowstone National Park; on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake; in Utah’s Henry Mountains in the south central part of the state; at the LBJ Grasslands (National Forest); and at Caprock Canyons State Park. At one time, millions of the plains subspecies migrated for hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles, harvesting grass and turning the soil to make the North American Great Plains one of the most productive habitats for plants and animals on the face of the Earth. We screwed that up a bit. The same area today does not produce equally to 200 years ago in fiber and meat, despite modern farming and ranching.
Maybe we can learn a lot more from these creatures, about how to keep food supplies going for that other common, though self-threatened species, Homo sapiens.
Probably can’t improve on the video, but I hope to get some good photos of these creatures for myself, this summer. Check the map above. If your summer travels take you close to a population of bison, why not stop in and visit?
More:
- American Bison listing at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species
- World Wildlife Fund article on the plains bison
- Defenders of Wildlife feature on bison
- Surprisingly thorough article on bison at Wikipedia, with historic photos
World Wildlife Fund image of plains bison, mother and calf, and caption: Historically bison were the dominant grazer on the Northern Great Plains landscape. This dominance shaped the landscape by affecting the pattern and structure of the grasses and vegetation that grew, and it was this vegetation pattern that allowed animals to flourish.
Posted by Ed Darrell 
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