Buffalo / Bison
A bison is either of two existing species of the wild cattle genus Bison. One, commonly but incorrectly known as the buffalo, is the American bison. The other, the European species, is the wisent.
Bison as ghosts of winter
© Wild by Nature Gallery
The bull of the American buffalo, Bison bison, may weigh more than 900 kg (about 2,000 lb) and stand more than 1.9 m (6 ft) high. The massive head and forequarters are covered with long hair, and the body slims down toward the hindquarters, which are covered with shorter hair. The female of the species is somewhat smaller. Both sexes have horns, but those of the male are more massive. During the breeding season, July and August, bulls leave their bachelor groups and mingle with the cow-calf herds. The strongest bulls tend individual cows until copulation is completed. A single calf is born after a gestation period of nine months.
The bison was a principal resource of the Plains Indians, furnishing them with food, skins for shelter and boats, bones for tools and utensils, and "buffalo chips" (dung) for fuel.
Few wild animals have undergone a more devastating encounter with humans than the bison. The grasslands from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains were the home of 30 million prairie bison when white settlers first arrived. These numbers were reduced to about 500 near the end of the last century, and then slowly increased to an estimated 35 to 50 thousand on refuges and ranches today.
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