Henry Mountains bison herd

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The animals in the Henry Mountains bison herd are of the plains bison subspecies (Bison bison bison). Yellowstone National Park may be the only location in the United States where free-ranging bison were never exterminated since they continued to exist in the wild and were not re-introduced as has been done in most other bison herd areas. As a result, the Yellowstone Park bison herd became the foundation herd for many others in the United States, including the Henry Mountains bison herd.

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The bison in the Henry Mountains herd is one of two herds maintained by the state of Utah. The other is the Antelope Island bison herd. The Henry Mountains Bison Herd has recently extended into the mountains of the Book Cliffs, and this may become a third bison herd for the state.

Location and habitat

The Henry Mountains bison herd is located mostly with the 2 million acres (8,100 km2) of land on or around the Henry Mountains of south-central Utah. An ongoing attempt is being made to expand the herd to include areas in the mountains of the Book Cliffs which are farther north. [1]

American bison (Bison bison) live in river valleys, prairies, and plains. Typical habitat is open or semi-open grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semi-arid lands and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are known historically to have supported bison. Bison will graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. Though not particularly known as high altitude animals, bison in the Henry Mountains herd are found throughout the Henry Mountains area, on public lands, including the desert lowlands and the mountainous regions to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) altitude. They are particularly prominent in the midlevel grassy areas.

History

The American bison once numbered in the millions, perhaps between 25 million and 60 million by some estimates, and they were possibly the most numerous large land animal on earth. However, they were hunted to near extinction throughout North America by the late 1880s. The Henry Mountain bison herd was started with animals transplanted from the Yellowstone bison herd, which was likely the last free-ranging bison herd in the United States and the only location where they did not go locally extinct in the United States.


The original 18 animals of the Henry Mountains herd were transplanted from Yellowstone National Park in 1941. They were released not into the mountains, but the arid desert of Robbers Roost, approximately 50 miles northeast of their eventual home. In 1942, another five bulls were added to the herd. That same year, the herd moved to the comparatively verdant grassland of the Henrys and across the Dirty Devil River to the Burr Desert at the north end of the mountain range. In 1963, the herd moved again, this time into the mountains, abandoning the desert life. The herd thrived in the new locale and quickly grew to about 80 animals. Today, the herd consists of between 300-400 animals, which is regarded as the maximum the range will support. [2]

Recently, the herd is competing with livestock for summer range forage. This has created the potential for conflict between cattle ranchers and sportsmen who consider the Henry Mountains prime bison hunting country. Special licenses are issued annually to hunt the animals and help reduce the excess population. In 2009, 146 public once-in-a-lifetime Henry Mountain bison hunting permits were issued. [3] In recent years, each bison permit that has been issued by the state of Utah has had 100 applicants. [4]

A population objective of 325 bison by 2012 was set by Utah wildlife biologists for the Henry Mountain herd. Since the bison reproduce easily and the herds have been larger than this in the past, a decision was made to reduce the size of the herd. To achieve this objective, and increase overall genetic diversity, breeding animals are being transplanted to other locations from the herd. In 2009, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources officials transplanted 31 bison from the Henry Mountains to the Book Cliffs in eastern Utah. [5] The new group joined 14 animals previously released in 2008 from a private herd on the nearby Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. [6]

Ecology

The Henry Mountains have some areas of Alpine meadows and grass prairie and this provides a nearly optimum environment for American bison. Bison are large herd animals that defend their young vigorously. American bison can run up to 35 miles per hour and are surprisingly agile, in addition to their notable strength and irritable temperament. However, in the Henry Mountains there are no significant apex predators, except for human beings. In the past, there were apex predators in these regions, but the predators have also been eliminated for the most part, because of their suspected history of predation upon open range cattle and sheep, as well as concerns in the past about the potential danger of human interactions.

Significant apex predators that could help control the bison population would include brown bears, grizzly bears and wolves. Some people suggest that the Henry Mountains could support a population of these predators if they were re-introduced. Other large mammals found in the Henry Mountains include elk, moose, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, mule deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep. Competitive pressure from the other large grazing mammals in the Henry Mountains may also help limit the number of bison in the herd, but this is not considered to have a significant effect on bison numbers. At the same time, unlike the population of bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd, the Henry Mountain bison are relatively free of disease, especially brucellosis.

Each year in late autumn, a small number of bison hunting permits are issued by the state of Utah. The herd is maintained by the state as a multi-purpose herd. One reason for the existence of the herd is an attempt to help repopulate bison into some of their previous natural range. But a second purpose is for management as a big game herd, and hunting is allowed under limited conditions.

Genetics

The Antelope Island bison herd, also managed by the state of Utah, has some cattle genes present. However, the Henry Mountains bison herd has been shown to be purebred Bison bison based on genetic testing of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. [7] This 2015 study also showed that the Henry Mountains bison herd is free of brucellosis, a bacterial disease that was imported with non-native domestic cattle to North America. [8]

Officially, the "American Buffalo" is classified by the United States government as a type of cattle, and the government allows private herds to be managed as such. This is a reflection of the characteristics that bison share with cattle. Though the bison is a separate genus from domestic cattle (Bos primigenius), they clearly have a lot of genetic compatibility, and American bison can interbreed freely with cattle. Moreover, when they do interbreed, the crossbreeds tend to look very much like purebred bison, so appearance is unreliable as a means of determining what is a purebred bison and what is a crossbred cow. Many ranchers have deliberately cross bred their cattle with bison, and it would also be expected that there could be some natural hybridization in areas where cattle and bison occur in the same range. Since cattle and bison eat similar food and tolerate similar conditions, they have often been in the same range together in the past, and opportunity for crossbreeding may sometimes have been common.

In recent decades, tests were developed to determine the source of mitochondrial DNA in cattle and bison, and it was found that most private herds were actually crossbred with cattle, and even most state and federal herds had some cattle DNA. With the advent of nuclear microsatellite DNA testing, the number of herds that contained cattle genes has increased. Though approximately 500,000 bison exist on private ranches and in public herds, some people estimate that perhaps only 15,000 to 25,000 of these bison are pure and are not actually bison-cattle hybrids. "DNA from domestic cattle (Bos taurus) has been detected in nearly all bison herds examined to date." [9] Significant public bison herds that do not appear to have hybridized domestic cattle genes are the Yellowstone bison herd, the Henry Mountains bison herd which was started with bison taken from Yellowstone Park, the Wind Cave bison herd and the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd and subsidiary herds started from it, in Canada.

A landmark study of bison genetics that was performed by James Derr of the Texas A&M University corroborated this. [10] The Derr study was undertaken in an attempt to determine what genetic problems bison might face as they repopulate former areas, and it noted that bison seem to be doing quite well, despite their apparent genetic bottleneck. One possible explanation for this might be the small amount of domestic cattle genes that are now in most bison populations, though this is not the only possible explanation for bison success. In the study cattle genes were also found in small amounts throughout most herds. "The hybridization experiments conducted by some of the owners of the five foundation herds of the late 1800s, have left a legacy of a small amount of cattle genetics in many of our existing bison herds." Derr states "All of the state owned bison herds tested (except for possibly one) contain animals with domestic cattle mtDNA." [10] It appears that the one state herd that had no cattle genes was the Henry Mountains bison herd. However, the extension of this herd into the Book Cliffs involved mixing the founders with additional bison from another source, so it is not known if the Book Cliff extension of the herd is also free of cattle hybridization.

A separate study by Wilson and Strobeck, published in Genome , was done to define the relationships between different herds of bison in the United States and Canada, and to determine whether the bison at Wood Buffalo National Park and the Yellowstone bison herd were possibly separate subspecies, and not plains bison (Bison bison bison). Some scientists had previously suggested that the Yellowstone bison were either of the athabascae (wood bison) subspecies, or that they were a type of 'Mountain bison' subspecies. It was determined by the study that the Wood Buffalo Park bison were actually crossbreeds between plains bison and wood bison, but that their predominant genetic makeup was truly that of the expected Wood Buffalo. [11] However, the Yellowstone bison herd were pure plains bison, and not any of the other previously suggested subspecies. Since the Yellowstone herd are plains bison, that would indicate that the Henry Mountain herd are also plains bison.

Future

There remain various questions and concerns regarding future management of the Henry Mountain bison herd. Several private groups, as well as governmental entities in the United States and Canada are making efforts to return bison to much of their previous natural range. Some private groups have purchased large tracts of lands, and some lands are in the process of being prepared for bison introduction. Currently, some state and national parks have habitat for bison, but most of these already have bison present. [12] [13] [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bison</span> Genus of mammals

A bison is a large bovine in the genus Bison within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellowstone National Park</span> National park in the western United States

Yellowstone National Park is a national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American bison</span> Species of bovid artiodactyl mammal

The American bison, commonly known as the American buffalo, or simply buffalo, is a species of bison that is endemic to North America. It is one of two extant species of bison, along with the European bison. Its historical range circa 9000 BC is referred to as the great bison belt, a tract of rich grassland spanning from Alaska south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard, as far north as New York, south to Georgia, and according to some sources, further south to northern Florida, with sightings in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beefalo</span> Hybrid of cattle and bison

Beefalo constitutes a hybrid offspring of domestic cattle, usually a male in managed breeding programs, and the American bison, usually a female in managed breeding programs. The breed was created to combine the characteristics of both animals for beef production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antelope Island</span> Island in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, United States

Antelope Island, with an area of 42 square miles (109 km2), is the largest of ten islands located within the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The island lies in the southeastern portion of the lake, near Salt Lake City and Davis County, and becomes a peninsula when the lake is at extremely low levels. It is protected as Antelope Island State Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bovid hybrid</span> Crossbreeds in the bovid family

A bovid hybrid is the hybrid offspring of members of two different species of the bovid family. There are 143 extant species of bovid, and the widespread domestication of several species has led to an interest in hybridisation for the purpose of encouraging traits useful to humans, and to preserve declining populations. Bovid hybrids may occur naturally through undirected interbreeding, traditional pastoral practices, or may be the result of modern interventions, sometimes bringing together species from different parts of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Mountains</span> Mountain range in Utah, USA

The Henry Mountains is a mountain range located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Utah that runs in a generally north-south direction, extending over a distance of about 30 miles (48 km). They were named by Almon Thompson in honor of Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The nearest town of any size is Hanksville, Utah, which is north of the mountains. The Henry Mountains were the last mountain range to be added to the map of the 48 contiguous U.S. states (1872), and before their official naming by Thompson were sometimes referred to as the "Unknown Mountains." In Navajo, the range is still referred to as Dził Bizhiʼ Ádiní.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wood bison</span> Subspecies of American bison

The wood bison or mountain bison, is a distinct northern subspecies or ecotype of the American bison. Its original range included much of the boreal forest regions of Alaska, Yukon, western Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia, northern Alberta, and northwestern Saskatchewan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plains bison</span> Subspecies of bison

The plains bison is one of two subspecies/ecotypes of the American bison, the other being the wood bison. A natural population of plains bison survives in Yellowstone National Park and multiple smaller reintroduced herds of bison in many places in the United States as well as southern portions of the Canadian Prairies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elk</span> Species of deer

The elk, or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The word "elk" originally referred to the European variety of the moose, Alces alces, but was transferred to Cervus canadensis by North American colonists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bovini</span> Tribe of cattle

The tribe Bovini or wild cattle are medium to massive bovines that are native to Eurasia, North America, and Africa. These include the enigmatic, antelope-like saola, the African and Asiatic buffalos, and a clade that consists of bison and the wild cattle of the genus Bos. Not only are they the largest members of the subfamily Bovinae, they are the largest species of their family Bovidae. The largest species is the gaur, weighing up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catalina Island bison herd</span> Introduced in 1924

The Catalina Island bison herd is a small group of introduced American bison living on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. In 1924, several bison were acquired for a film shoot and, before the end of 1925, brought to Catalina. The bison are now quite popular with the tourists. Some buildings have been painted with images of bison and decorated with bison weather vanes. Over the decades, the bison herd numbered as many as 600. The population currently numbers approximately 100.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bison hunting</span>

Bison hunting was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of North America, before the animal's near-extinction in the late 19th century following United States expansion into the West. Bison hunting was an important spiritual practice and source of material for these groups, especially after the European introduction of the horse in the 16th through 19th centuries enabled new hunting techniques. The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by non-Indigenous hunters increased Indigenous hunting pressure due to non-Indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of a deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the Indigenous peoples during times of conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antelope Island bison herd</span> Population of bison in Utah, USA

The Antelope Island bison herd is a semi–free-ranging population of American bison in Antelope Island State Park in Great Salt Lake, Utah. Bison were introduced to Antelope Island in 1893. The herd is significant because it is one of the largest and oldest publicly owned bison herds in the nation. The Antelope Island bison herd currently numbers between 550 and 700 individuals. Though the bison on Antelope Island are plains bison, which was the most common bison subspecies in North America, the bison have a distinct genetic heritage from many of the other bison herds in the United States and they are considered to be desirable as part of the breeding and foundation stock for other bison herds, because of their separate genetic heritage and some of the distinct genetic markers that are found in the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellowstone bison herd</span> Oldest public herd in the United States

The Yellowstone bison herd roams the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The bison herd is probably the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States, estimated in 2020 to comprise 4,800 bison. The bison are American bison of the Plains bison subspecies. Yellowstone National Park may be the only location in the United States where free-ranging bison were never extirpated, since they continued to exist in the wild and were not reintroduced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wind Cave bison herd</span> American bison in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota

The Wind Cave bison herd is a herd of 250–400 American bison in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, United States. As an active participant in the conservation of American bison, it is believed to be one of only seven free-roaming and genetically pure herds on public lands in North America. The other six herds are in Yellowstone Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Henry Mountains, Blue Mounds State Park (Minnesota), Minneopa State Park (Minnesota), and Elk Island National Park. The Wind Cave herd are of the Plains bison subspecies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Prairie (nature reserve)</span> Nature reserve in Montana, United States

American Prairie is a prairie-based nature reserve in Central Montana, United States, on a shortgrass prairie ecosystem with migration corridors and native wildlife. This wildlife conservation area is being developed as a private project of the American Prairie Foundation (APF), a non-profit organization. The reserve covers 462,803 acres (187,290 ha). The organization hopes to expand it greatly through a combination of both private and public lands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of bison conservation in Canada</span>

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the plains bison and wood bison in Canada were hunted by nomadic indigenous hunters and white hunters alike. By the 1880s, the bison was nearly extinct, spurring a movement to save the few herds that remained. Federal government wildlife policy evolved from preservation of wilderness to utilitarian, scientific conservation and management of bison populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation of American bison</span> Effort to increase bison in North America

The conservation of bison in North America is an ongoing, diverse effort to bring American bison back from the brink of extinction. Plains bison, a subspecies, are a keystone species in the North American Great Plains. Bison are a species of conservation concern in part because they suffered a severe population bottleneck at the end of the 19th century. The near extinction of the species during the 19th century unraveled fundamental ties between bison, grassland ecosystems, and indigenous peoples’ cultures and livelihoods. English speakers used the word buffalo for this animal when they arrived. Bison was used as the scientific term to distinguish them from the true buffalo. Buffalo is commonly used as it continues to hold cultural significance, particularly for Indigenous people.

References

  1. ↑ "Utah Big Game Transplants". YouTube. 2008-12-18. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  2. ↑ Archived August 21, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "Once-In-A-Lifetime Permits" (PDF). Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-11-11.
  4. ↑ "Henry Mountain Bison Herd". Cooperativeconservationamerica.org. Archived from the original on 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  5. ↑ "DWR captures bison near Lake Powell". Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Archived from the original on 2009-12-10.
  6. ↑ "Bison Return to the Book Cliffs". Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Archived from the original on 2009-10-25.
  7. ↑ Ranglack DH, Dobson LK, du Toit JT, Derr J (December 17, 2015). "Genetic Analysis of the Henry Mountains Bison Herd". PLOS ONE. 10 (12): e0144239. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1044239R. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0144239 . PMC   4682953 . PMID   26673758.
  8. ↑ Mary Meagher; Margaret E. Meyer (September 1994). "On the Origin of Brucellosis in Bison of Yellowstone National Park: A Review". Conservation Biology. 8 (3): 645–653. doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.1994.08030645.x. JSTOR   2386505.
  9. ↑ Halbert, Natalie; Derr, James (September 30, 2007). Remove Threats to Irreplaceable Bison Herd at Wind Cave National Park (PDF). University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Report). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 2011-04-09.
  10. 1 2 Derr, James (October 24, 2006). "American Bison: The Ultimate Genetic Survivor" (PDF). Texas A&M University – via Buffalo Field Campaign.
  11. ↑ Wilson, G. A.; Strobeck, C. (1999). "Genetic variation within and relatedness among wood and plains bison populations". Genome. 42 (3): 483–496. doi:10.1139/g98-147. PMID   10382295.
  12. ↑ "National Bison Range – Dept of the Interior Recovery Activities". Recovery.doi.gov. 2011-06-20. Archived from the original on 2011-06-22. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  13. ↑ "American Bison Society > Home". Americanbisonsocietyonline.org. Archived from the original on 2013-05-30. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  14. ↑ David Samuels. "Where the Buffalo Roam". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
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