We’re on our way to the National Bison Association meetings in Denver, Colorado. Kathleen being a Western Bison Association board member, we’re obligated to attend the Thursday board meeting where Kathy will be brilliant, and Michael will try to keep his mouth shut. The thrust of this years meeting is petitioning the US Fish and Wildlife to delist Woods bison from the Endangered Species Act. Why? Recent genetic research has shown woods bison and plains bison to be the same crittur. Woods bison, living where they do in Northern Alberta look slightly different than Plains bison living in, say, Oklahoma. These are what we call phenotypic differences. And, amazingly, if you move plains bison from Oklahoma to northern Alberta, after about 5 or six generations, guess what? Yep. The begin to look a lot like “woods” bison.
It all makes sense if you think about it. Prior to the arrival of the white guys, buffalo ranged all over North America, clear up into Alaska. And, believe us, those four feet work just fine. From the Peace River down to the Gulf of Mexico there were no barriers to gene flow–mating–between moving populations of buffalo. Yukon buffalo mated with Alberta buffalo who mated with Montana, buffalo and so on down to Texas.
It was only when biologists in the early Twentieth Century began to study them, that a distinction was made because, well, buffalo in Alberta look different from buffalo in Texas.
So why should the US Fish and Wildlife manage woods bison differently from their plains cousins?
We’re hoping that the National Bison Association will join the Western in our petetion to have the woods buffalo delisted.
4 thoughts on “Delist Woods Bison!”
January 18, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I suppose that using that bureaucratic logic, Atlantic and Pacific salmon should be somehow different unless, of course, they really are.
January 22, 2012 at 12:29 pm
We don’t know about salmon, but with the bison genome being worked out by the Iowa State University, it appears that they are having trouble distinguishing bison from cattle genes. While we were in a board meeting at the National Bison Association meetings at the time, other buffalo producers who were there told us that there is little if any difference. If so, this rolls a major stone in the path of the eco-loonies who are trying to use bison as a means of bankrupting ranchers along the northern Yellowstone border, and portends doom for their efforts to list Plains bison as an Endangered species. Should they succeed. the impact on those of us who raise the 350,000 bison on private ranches would be consequential.
January 31, 2012 at 9:56 pm
All seriousness aside, do you think if we moved Gary to Wyoming that he would begin to look like Mike? I see you are staying busy! Interested in making another visit to the Great Kiva this year?
February 19, 2012 at 7:09 am
Dear Cyresa: Moving Gary to Wyoming leaves him looking just like Gary! We know, it was tried in the late 70s with less than salubrious effects. If you think he looks scruffy now, you should have seen him then! And Donna has had a most remarkable influence. Along with Tom Polk, Gary used to burp the reamble to the US constitution. And the opportunity to lecture in the Great Kiva is always exciting to us. Each time is a privilege. We hope that you’re well! And give all of our best wishes to the good folks down there. We’re planning a bike trip through the southwest this spring. Maybe we can stop by?