102 <strong>American</strong> <strong>Bison</strong>: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010
Chapter 10 Guidelines for Ecological Restoration of <strong>Bison</strong> Lead Authors: C. Cormack Gates, Robert O. Stephenson, Peter J.P. Gogan, Curtis H. Freese, and Kyran Kunkel 10.1 Introduction During Pre-Columbia times, bison had the widest distribution of any large herbivore in North America, ranging from the arid grasslands of northern Mexico to the extensive meadow systems of Interior Alaska (Chapters 2 and 7). Following the arrival of Europeans, the species experienced unparalleled range contraction and collapse of populations in the wild, primarily during the late 19 th Century (Isenberg 2000). Wild bison persisted in only two locations, south of Great Slave Lake in what is now Wood <strong>Buffalo</strong> National Park (about 300 individuals), and in the remote Pelican Valley in the Absaroka Mountains in the interior of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) (fewer than 30 individuals). The species was extirpated from the wild throughout the remainder of its original range. The <strong>American</strong> bison has achieved a remarkable numerical recovery, from approximately 500 at the end of the 19 th Century to about half a million animals today, of which 93% now exist under captive commercial propagation (Chapter 7). However, Sanderson et al. (2008) estimate that bison occupy less than 1% of their original range. Rarely do wildlife populations in North America achieve the full range of ecological interactions and social values existing prior to European settlement. The bison remains extirpated as wildlife and in the ecological sense from much of its original continental range. This is particularly true of the plains bison, for which few populations interact with the full suite of other native species and environmental limiting factors (Chapters 6 and 7). In the absence of committed action by governments (including aboriginal governments), conservation organisations, and perhaps the commercial bison industry, the conservation of bison as a wild species is far from secure. The main challenges were described in earlier chapters of this volume and are summarised by Freese et al. (2007). They include anthropogenic selection and other types of intensive management of captive herds, small population size effects, issues related to exotic diseases, introgression of cattle genes, management under simplified agricultural production systems, and associated with this, widespread ecological extinction as an interactive species. Contemporary biological conservation is founded on the premise of maintaining the potential for ecological adaptation in viable populations in the wild (IUCN 2003; Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992; Soulé 1987), and maintaining interactive species (Soule et al. 2003). Viability relates to the capacity of a population to maintain itself without significant demographic or genetic manipulation by humans for the foreseeable future (Soulé 1987). For limiting factors, such as predation and seasonal resource limitation, adaptation requires interactions among species, between trophic levels, with physical elements of an ecosystem. These, and other interactions among individuals within a population (e.g., resource and mate competition), contribute to maintaining behavioural wildness, morphological and physiological adaptations, fitness, and genetic diversity. These factors enable a species to adapt, evolve, and persist in a natural setting without human support in the long term (Knowles et al. 1998). Viable, wild populations of bison, subject to the full range of natural limiting factors, are of pre-eminent importance to the long-term conservation, global security, and continued evolution of the species as wildlife. However, the availability of extensive ecosystems capable of sustaining large, free- roaming, ecologically interactive bison populations is limited. This is particularly true in the original range of plains bison in the southern agriculture-dominated regions of the continent, given the historical post-European settlement patterns of industrial and post-industrial society. Social and political systems that provide space and environmental conditions where bison can continue to exist as wildlife and evolve as a species, are severely limited. Innovative approaches need to be instigated in some locations to emulate, to the extent possible, the original ecological conditions, and to prevent domestication and small population- related deleterious effects such as those experienced by the European bison (Hartl and Pucek 1994; Prior 2005; Pucek et al. 2004). Currently, there is only one population of plains bison (YNP) and three populations of wood bison (Greater Wood <strong>Buffalo</strong> National Park, Mackenzie, and Nisling River) in North America that can be considered ecologically restored (thousands of individuals, large landscapes, all natural limiting factors present, minimal interference/management by humans). The conservation of <strong>American</strong> bison as wildlife would be significantly enhanced by establishing additional large populations to achieve landscape scale ecological restoration. This will require effective collaboration among a variety of stakeholders, whereby local actions, based upon social and scientific information, are coordinated with wider goals for species and ecosystem conservation. The bison was an <strong>American</strong> <strong>Bison</strong>: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010 103
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American Bison Status Survey and Co
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American Bison Status Survey and Co
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Table of Contents Acknowledgements
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6.3 Demographics ..................
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9.6 Active Management: Handling, He
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This manuscript is the product of m
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ABS American Bison Society ABSG Ame
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The publication of this IUCN Americ
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and foothills. Bison have a profoun
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Chapter 1 Introduction: The Context
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composition and function, as well a
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Chapter 2 History of Bison in North
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Figure 2.1 Original ranges of plain
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Charles Alloway (Manitoba), Charles
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nomadic “Plains Indian Culture”
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Chapter 3 Taxonomy and Nomenclature
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demonstrate that Bison and Bos were
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from their original habitat near th
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Chapter 4 Genetics As a science, po
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Selection for diversity in one syst
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cross, however, the latter is more
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the conservation of the wild specie
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Chapter 5 Reportable or Notifiable
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one) followed by its widespread dis
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cattle at similar levels to S19 (Ch
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long as 156 days post-infection. So
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and elk herds migrate across severa
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These concepts are being developed
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Chapter 6 General Biology, Ecology
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leave the herd prior to calving or
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historically dependent on a combina
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6.2.1.2.1 Northern mixed grasslands
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woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus
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season: Wolfe and Kimball (1989) re
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