CITES Species: Wood Bison

The Wood Bison (Bison bison athabascae), also called Mountain Bison, Wood Buffalo or Mountain Buffalo, is a distinct northern subspecies of the American Bison (often called "buffalo"). Its original range included much of the forest regions of Alaska, Yukon, Western Northwest territories, northeastern British Columbia, northern Alberta, and northwestern Saskatchewan. It is included on the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) threatened species list. 

The Wood Bison differs from the Plains Bison (Bison bison bison), the other surviving North American subspecies/ecotype, in a number of important ways. Most notably, the Wood Bison is heavier, with large males weighing over 900 kilograms (2,000 lb), making it the largest terrestrial animal in North America. The highest point of the Wood Bison is well ahead of its front legs, while the Plains Bison's highest point is directly above the front legs. Wood bison also have larger horn cores, a darker and woollier pelage, and less hair on their forelegs and beard.

As with other bison, the Wood Bison's population was devastated by hunting and other factors. By the early 1900s, they were regarded as extremely rare or perhaps nearly extinct. However, a herd of about 200 was discovered in Alberta, Canada in 1957. This herd has since recovered to a total population of approximately 2,500, largely as a result of conservation efforts by Canadian government agencies. In 1988, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) changed the subspecies' conservation status from "endangered" to "threatened".  

 On June 17, 2008, 53 Canadian Wood Bison were transferred from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada, to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre near Anchorage, Alaska. There they will be held in quarantine for two years, and then re-introduced to their native habitat in the Minto Flats area near Fairbanks. Currently there are only 3,000 Wood Bison in the wild, located in the Northwest Territories, Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba. In 2006, an outherd was established in Yakutia, Russia where the species died out over 6000 years ago. In addition to the loss of habitat and hunting, Wood Bison populations have also been in danger of hybridizing with Plains Bison, and therefore polluting the genetic stock.

Publicly-owned free-ranging herds in Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories comprise 90% of existing Wood Bison, although six smaller public and private captive breeding herds with conservation objectives comprise approximately 10% of the total. These captive herds and two large isolated free-ranging herds in the Yukon and Northwest Territories all derive from disease-free and morphologically representative founding stock from northern Wood Buffalo National Park in northeastern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories. These captive herds are particularly important for conservation and recovery purposes, because the larger free-ranging herds in and around Wood Buffalo National Park were infected with bovine brucellosis and tuberculosis after 7,000 Plains Bison (Bison bison bison) were trans-shipped by barge from Buffalo National Park near Wainwright, Alberta in the 1920s. 

These diseases and others remain endemic in the free-ranging herds in and around Wood Buffalo National Park. The diseases represent a serious management issue for governments, various local Aboriginal groups, and the cattle industry rapidly encroaching on the park's boundaries. Disease management strategies and initiatives began in the 1950s, and have yet to result in a reduction of the incidence of either disease despite considerable expenditure and increased public involvement.



Source: Wikipedia, CITES