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GwUd 'WUhqBrawN* UtnOTTAW A—The wood buffalo, discovered aln« after JO yearsin which scientists mourned it as extinct, will b* set up in business again on land its ancestors roamedGovernment wildlife officials like Dr W. E Stevens are excitedly scouting the northwest (or new buffalo range, determin ed not to muff a second chance to save the wood bisonThe range must be large enough to support a good sued herd, must be wild, unsettled country with no (arms to complicate matters, and must be tar enough from the herds of plains buffalo that there will be no interbreeding.One possibility is the aspen parkland of northern Saskatchewan. where no buffalo have lived for 75 years. Another area Stevens has in mind is in the Northwest Territories, west of GreatSlav* Lake.When the sites have been selected. the Wildlife Service intends to send a winter tractor-train expedition to the remote northwestern corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, where a herd of purebred wood bison has been found, and bring out enough young bulls and cows to start the new herdsOttawa Carr asp aw dent tar ThaThe wood buffalo, for size and weight the king of his species, would not have faced extinction if. 35 years ago. some Ottawa bureaucrat had remembered about the bees and the flowers.The story start* in 1906. when Interior Minister Frank Oliver persuaded the Laurier cabinet to let him buy 250 head of plains buffalo for $200,000 from the Walking Coyote herd on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. Many Americans were furious when the deal went through for this herd was the largest in the States. At the shipping point this resentment all but erupted into violence when the buffalo were loaded into cattle cars for the 1.200 mile railway trip to Wainwright, Alta.By 1925 the herd at Wai. nsht had so Increased that the ran;.# there could not support it Rut n northern .Alberta the 17 3 4 square miles of ttood Bufia.s National Park supported onl a couple of thousand wood bison— the descendants of some J00 ihut were the last survivors of the subspecies when the governmentbanned hunting them in 1191With ill considered conscrv a-tiomst zeal, the government moved 6.673 plains buffalo into t e park The native wood #buffa ® were swamped by the influx it is estimated that by 19*0 the e were no pure-blooded wood buffalo left—only plains bison and hybrids that today total abo it 16.000.☆☆For years government zoo gists hoped that maybe in some remote valley some of the wood bison had escaped the intermingling of genes—but none wa*ever found Then, in 1957. wildlife officer* taking an aerial census of tha park buffalo spotted some bison in a remote area where none had been reported before. Moreover, they were 75 miles from the nearest hybrid herd—and the terrain between was muskeg, a natural barrier that buffalo could cross only in winter, whenthe animals travel least.With hope renewed. Wildlife Officer N. S. Novakowski of Fort Smith led a party across the frozen muskeg early last year. They found a herd of 200 animals. shot five for study, .and from the size and coloring of the beast*—20 per cent larger and much darker than the plainsbison—Novakowski was almostcertain he was witnessing a miracle. Back in Ottawa, caliper measurements of the skulls oi the five specimens shot confirmed the miracle—the wood buffalo.Bison bison Athabascae Rhoads,still lives.But wily marginally This iahis last stand. The only retreat is into oblivion.
Newspaper Details
Brandon Sun
Brandon, Manitoba, CA
Fri, Sep 23, 1960
Page 1
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Clipped by
Kevin S.
CA 28 Jul 2021
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