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The American Bison Society (ABS) was founded in 1905 by pioneering conservationists and sportsmen including William T. Hornaday and Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt , also known as T.R., and to the public as Teddy, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
 to help save the bison
Bison

Bison is a taxonomic group containing six species of large even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Only two of these species still exist: the American bison and the European bison, or wisent , each with two subspecies....
 from extinction and raise public awareness about the species.

Over 40 million American bison
American Bison

The American Bison is a bovinae mammal, also commonly known as the American buffalo. "Buffalo" is somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffaloes", the Wild Asian Water Buffalo and the African buffalo....
 (Bison bison) once roamed the plains and grasslands from Mexico to central Canada, shaping the landscape with their migrations, grazing patterns, and behavior.






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The American Bison Society (ABS) was founded in 1905 by pioneering conservationists and sportsmen including William T. Hornaday and Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt , also known as T.R., and to the public as Teddy, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
 to help save the bison
Bison

Bison is a taxonomic group containing six species of large even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Only two of these species still exist: the American bison and the European bison, or wisent , each with two subspecies....
 from extinction and raise public awareness about the species.

Over 40 million American bison
American Bison

The American Bison is a bovinae mammal, also commonly known as the American buffalo. "Buffalo" is somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffaloes", the Wild Asian Water Buffalo and the African buffalo....
 (Bison bison) once roamed the plains and grasslands from Mexico to central Canada, shaping the landscape with their migrations, grazing patterns, and behavior. By the 1870s, their populations had been decimated by westward expansion and over-hunting. An 1889 survey conducted by Hornaday, the first director of the Wildlife Conservation Society
Wildlife Conservation Society

The Wildlife Conservation Society endeavors to save wildlife and wild lands though careful use of science, Wildlife conservation around the world, education and through a system of urban wildlife parks....
 (known then as the New York Zoological Society), showed that approximately 1,000 bison remained in North America.

History


The early American Bison Society launched a campaign to raise funds to create wild bison reserves and stock them with bison from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo
Bronx Zoo

The Bronx Zoo is a famous zoo located within the Bronx Park, in The Bronx borough of New York City. The largest metropolitan zoo in the United States, the Bronx Zoo comprises of parklands and naturalistic habitats, through which the Bronx River flows....
. In 1907 the ABS shipped 15 bison to the Ouachita National Forest
Ouachita National Forest

The Ouachita National Forest is a National Forest that lies in the western portion of Arkansas and portions of eastern Oklahoma.The Ouachita National Forest is the oldest National Forest in the southern United States....
 and Game Preserve in Oklahoma
Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
 by cart and rail. This was the first animal reintroduction in North America. In 1910, the ABS helped buy the nucleus herd for the National Bison Range
National Bison Range

The National Bison Range is a National Wildlife Refuge located in western Montana established in 1908 to provide a sanctuary for the American bison....
 in Montana
Montana

Montana is a U.S. state in the Western United States. The western third of the state contains numerous mountain ranges; other 'island' ranges are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains....
, and in 1913, ABS donated 14 bison to Wind Cave National Park
Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park is a United States national park north of the town of Hot Springs, South Dakota in western South Dakota. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the seventh U.S....
 in South Dakota
South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
. Counting on the successful reproduction of the species, the ABS considered their work done, and the organization was disbanded in 1935.

In 2005, the American Bison Society was re-launched by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to secure the ecological future of bison in North America. About 450,000 bison remain in Mexico, the United States, and Canada in various management settings. They are absent from most of their former range and do not influence grassland ecosystems as in the past. Over 90% of these bison are being raised for meat in managed circumstances. The complex modern identity of the bison – as cultural icon, wildlife, and livestock – poses several challenges to its ecological future. The revitalized American Bison Society has undertaken a long-term, transboundary, multi-disciplinary initiative to live up to the promise of its original founders “to protect and increase the American bison” by building a network of bison experts and managers, including public and private herd managers, conservationists, Native American managers, federal and state agencies, and scientists, and fostering opportunities for collaboration on important issues facing the species, including genetic status, health and disease, and ecological interactions with other species, such as grassland birds.

The group's mission is to "work with a broad range of partners to build the scientific and social bases to achieve ecological restoration of North American bison."

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