American Bison

An estimated 40 to 60 million bison once roamed this continent in vast herds, fed by seas of grassland prairie and migrating in undulating waves from north to south with the seasons. Their numbers were not much threatened when nomadic tribes hunted them on foot for millennia, but the reintroduction of the horse to the continent, a flood of immigrants, and greed reduced these vast herds by 1890 to a mere 750 animals. Only an act of Congress saved them from extinction. Today, only a remnant survive in protected reserves and ranches of an animal species once well adapted to every challenge in the environment except man.

Frisco, Texas · United States