Hide Article Text (OCR)
Found At Lott -TK# lo*t Bison 'The mod biaon, grand daddy ofthe familiar plains buffalo, big-f»r (9 feet high, 12 feet long.1J00 pounds), blacker, and wool- ber, once ranged m million* ) from the Horn Mountains m Canada s subarctic to the Colorado plateaus. But such was theslaughter as civilization movedwestward that in the US. the wood bison did not live out the nineteenth century; only in Canada did a few hundred, protect- j ed by law, struggle into the j twentieth century. * jThe decline of the survivors began in 1906, when Canada, I outsmarting a reluctant U.SCongress, bought the last surviving herd of plains buffalo in j the U.S., loaded them into cattle ears, and shipped them 1,2'’0 miles to Wainwright. Alta.Some years later a genetically ignorant Ottawa bureaucrat added the plains bison to the herdof wood bison. The newcomers swamped the wood bison. By 1949, inbreeding had left no known pure-blooded bison atka-tascae rhoads — the zoological name of the woodland species.For years, hope lingered that maybe in a remote valley some of the wood bison had escaped hybridization, but none wasever found.Then in 1957 wildlife officers, taking an aerial census of buffalo, spotted some animals in the northwestern corner of thef.Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta. They were 75 miles from the nearest hybrid herd, separated from it by m is- j keg swamps and lakes that are j impassable except in winter.They were big and black; could \ they be unhybridized wood buffalo?\V ■ B|g||Last year a ground expedition j crossed the muskeg to find out. * Five bison were shot and j brought back to Ottawa for study. Finally, last month, a zoologists' report confirmed the home These were pure-bloodedwood buffalo, indeed.Now, Canadian conservationists have launched a crash program to find the animals a new and isolated range where they eould survive and even rebuild their ranks. Once the site has been selected, a wintertime trac-tor-train expedition will cross the frozen muskeg barrier to bring out young cows and bullsto start new herds. The old herd will be left to continue its fightfor racial survival. Not far from !the wood buffalo’s present range, the whooping crane (world population: 40) nests and battles for its right to a place on the planet
Newspaper Details
Birtle Eye Witness
Birtle, Manitoba, CA
Tue, Nov 22, 1960
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Kevin S.
CA 28 Jul 2021
Other Publications Near Birtle, Manitoba
Birtle Eye Witness
Birtle Observer
