Bison

The bison is a large, shaggy mammal that lives in the grasslands of North America. It is the biggest land animal on the continent. A full-grown male bull can stand six feet tall at the shoulder and weigh up to 2,000 pounds, about as much as a small car. Females, called cows, are smaller but still weigh around 1,000 pounds. Bison have huge heads, a big shoulder hump, short curved horns, and thick brown fur.

Bison are often called buffalo, but that is not quite right. True buffalo, like the water buffalo and the African cape buffalo, live in Asia and Africa. American bison are close cousins of cattle. The nickname stuck anyway, and most people still use both words.

Bison live in herds that can include hundreds of animals. They eat grass almost all day long. Their thick fur keeps them warm in winter, even when the temperature drops below zero. During blizzards, bison face directly into the storm and push forward. Most animals turn away from the wind, but bison walk straight through it.

Despite their size, bison are surprisingly fast. They can run 35 miles per hour, faster than a horse over short distances. They are also strong swimmers and can jump fences that would stop a cow.

For thousands of years, bison were the center of life for many Native American nations on the Great Plains, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, and Comanche. People used nearly every part of the animal. The meat was food. The hide became clothing and tipi covers. The bones became tools. The sinew became thread. At one time, around 30 to 60 million bison roamed North America, in herds so huge they could take days to pass a single spot.

Then, in the 1800s, the bison almost disappeared. American settlers and hunters killed millions of them for hides, for sport, and as a way to take land from Native peoples who depended on them. By 1889, fewer than 1,100 bison were left alive in all of North America. It was one of the fastest losses of a major animal in history.

A small group of ranchers, conservationists, and Native nations worked to save the species. They protected the last small herds and slowly built the numbers back up. Today about 400,000 bison live in the United States, most on private ranches. About 30,000 roam in wild or protected herds, including the famous herd at Yellowstone National Park. In 2016, Congress named the bison the national mammal of the United States.