"Thunder Of The Plains"

"Thunder of the plains"--Bison, history of the symbolic animals of Canada which today are often mistakenly, or at least incorrectly, often called buffalo in the U. S. but then, we must remember, the U.S. is most often mistaken about most everything. 

By any name, they are formidable animals and the heaviest land animals in North America.

Great giant beasts roaming the open plains and migrating in mass herds are more reminiscent of Africa than North America.

But for several thousand years, large herds of BISON roamed the open prairies from Canada to the Great plains of the United States. Bison were at one time so numerous that their stampedes across the Canadian landscape sounded like the roll of distant thunder. This earned the bison the nickname of "thunder of the plains". But with the migration of white settlers, the bison's numbers dwindled to a fraction of their original numbers, and at one point- near extinction. Worse, recent genetic studies of herds in the USA show that many of them include animals with genes from domestic cattle--meaning that like the North American native--the pure full-blooded bison may be virtually extinct. It is estimated that there are as few as 1200 to 15000 (including the European bison) in the world. Wildlife officials now believe that free roaming and genetically pure herds may be limited Elk Island National  Park and Wood Bison National Park in Alberta Canada.

The bison is a truly magnificent animal. It is the largest land mammal found in North America since the end of the ice age. Like the North American Native, it originally crossed into North America via the Bering land bridge. They are NOT BUFFALO, as are the African Cape buffalo, or the South-east Asian Water buffalo. They have virtually no relatives, other than the European bison.

Before Northern Europeans settled in North America, there were an estimated 30-70 million bison ranging across the continent, from Alaska to at least the tier of Mexican states.