Reintroducing the wood bison to Alaska

By Lana Johnson

A unique partnership with Canada is restoring a natural resource to Alaska that disappeared 100 years ago – the wood bison.

Fifty-three of the nearly extinct animals made their public debut July 8 during a ceremony sponsored by Teck Cominco. The bison will stay at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center (AWCC) near Portage until they can be released into the wild.

The Wood Bison Recovery Project is designed to reintroduce the largest land mammal in North America into the wild. Wood bison roamed Alaska for thousands of years but disappeared around 1900.

The recovery project is a cooperative venture with state and Canadian agencies. AWCC serves as a captive breeding and holding center for the animals, which were shipped to Alaska from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada. The bison will remain at AWCC until disease testing requirements are completed and there are enough animals to start herds in the wild.

Wood bison are well adapted to life in Alaska and northern Canada. They are a different subspecies than plains bison and are adapted to northern habitats. The two differ in size, shape and the appearance of their coat.

Alaska’s vast expanses of meadows make it one of the “last frontiers” in North America for restoring additional herds of wood bison. Wood bison feed primarily on sedges and grasses, and studies have shown that bison grazing can increase habitat diversity. Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) biologists have identified high quality habitat in various parts of interior Alaska, and the Department is working with a variety of interests to restore wood bison in as many as three areas in the next several years.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided several months ago to revise a previous interpretation that would have exempted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) the reintroduction of the wood bison into the wild. As a result, the Service now regards wood bison as having status under the ESA. However, in the next several months, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will be working with the Service to develop a special rule under section 10(j) of the ESA, which would designate these populations as “nonessential-experimental” and remove most of the regulatory burden associated with Section 7 consultations.

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