The Week In Review
Have You Registered For IBC Yet?
The Early Bird Registration deadline has been extended to April 30th
- Full Conference Registration*: $350.00 (Early Bird price until April 30, 2022); $420.00 (Starting May 1, 2022)
- Full Conference Family Registration*: $850.00 - Ticket includes admission for three persons (16+) in the same family
*Includes access to all convention sessions and Tuesday reception, Wednesday Banquet and Thursday Banquet*.
And for even more excitement: All those registered by April 30 will be entered to win a $500 package from Granted Sweater!
Go HERE to Register!
Early Bird Deadline Ends April 30, 2022.
IBC Website HERE
Dozens Of Canada's Wood Bison Moved To Alaska For Long-Term Survival
CTV News Edmonton / Kanishka Singh
Dozens of Canada's wood bison, who live in northern Alberta and are North America's largest land animals, have been moved to Alaska to establish conservation herds to ensure their long-term survival, the Canadian government said.
Canada has listed the wood bison as a threatened species since 2003. The population has been declining across their range and are at risk of becoming endangered, extirpated, or extinct if nothing is done to protect them, according to the Canadian government's website.
In January 2020, Canada determined that wood bison were "facing imminent threats to their recovery."
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced on Thursday that 40 wood bison from Elk Island National Park in Alberta were safely translocated to Alaska. Wood bison have dark brown coats with long shaggy fur on their shoulders along with large humps on their backs. Read More HERE
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Bison Hunt Data Released
Whitehorse Star / Chuck Tobin
Yukon hunters harvested 273 bison this past season, which closed March 31.
Of the animals shot, 146 were cows and 127 were bulls, according to the preliminary harvest numbers released by Environment Yukon.
The 273 are one shy of the record 274 shot last year.
Haines Junction conservation officer Russell Oborne told the Star late last week there weren’t a lot of hunters early in the season because of the snow conditions.
Most of the harvest occurred later in the season, he noted, including a significant number of hunters last month.
Deep snow conditions kept the numbers light in November and December 2021. Read More HERE
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Earth Day and the American Bison – A Perfect, Regenerative Fit
NBA News Release
Westminster, CO (April 22, 2022) - On this 2022 Earth Day, as we celebrate Mother Earth and her natural majesty, the National Bison Association encourages consumers to claim bison as their clean, regenerative protein choice. Why? Because bison are “Regenerative by Nature”. ™
Regenerative agriculture practices increase soil biodiversity and organic matter, leading to more resilient soils that can better withstand climate change impacts like flooding and drought. Healthy soils promote the growth and health of the bison that graze on those plants and grasses, while restoring important carbon-capturing grasslands in the process. This is regenerative agriculture in a nutshell and bison are nature’s perfect fit for this approach to sustainable agriculture. The bison’s regenerative behavior can be attributed to their evolution on the North American continent over thousands of years and their resulting grazing behavior, which remains intact today as bison have never been domesticated.
Today’s bison stewards utilize these innate instincts to their advantage, while, in turn, restoring the species to its native landscape to produce a supremely nutrient-dense, low-fat, delicious protein. As such, the National Bison Association provides a very holistic approach to herd management in its education and outreach to livestock stewards who are increasingly choosing bison to graze their pastures, and which has proven to be a profitable agricultural endeavor with bison producers in every state today. Read More HERE
Saving An American Icon
Today Show /
Inside ranchers’ efforts to save the American bison
After reaching the brink of extinction, there are now half a million bison in North America – but now there are signs of trouble where the buffalo roam. In the latest installment of TODAY’s Climate, NBC’s Kerry Sanders reports on the efforts to save the iconic animals as their habitats face droughts. See Video HERE
Genomic Evaluation Of Hybridization In Historic And Modern North American Bison (Bison Bison)
Nature.com /
Abstract
During the late nineteenth century North American bison underwent a significant population bottleneck resulting in a reduction in population size of over 99% and a species-level near-extinction event. Factors responsible for this destruction included indiscriminate killing, loss of access to suitable habitat, and diseases. At the nadir of this population crash, very few wild plains bison survived and were restricted to Yellowstone National remained in Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada.
However, most surviving bison in the late 1800’s were maintained by cattle ranchers in private herds where hybridization between bison with various breeds of domestic cattle was often encouraged. Over the last 20 years, the legacy of this introgression has been identified using mitochondrial DNA and limited nuclear microsatellite analyses. However, no genome-wide assessment has been performed, and some herds were believed to be free of introgression based on current genetic testing strategies. Herein, we report detailed analyses using whole genome sequencing from nineteen modern and six historical bison, chosen to represent the major lineages of bison, to identify and quantitate signatures of nuclear introgression in their recent (within 200 years) history. Both low and high coverage genomes provided evidence for recent introgression, including animals from Yellowstone, Wind Cave, and Elk Island National Parks which were previously thought to be free from hybridization with domestic cattle.
We employed multiple approaches, including one developed for this work, to identify putative cattle haplotypes in each bison genome. These regions vary greatly in size and frequency by sample and herd, though we detected domestic cattle introgression in all bison genomes tested. Since our sampling strategy spanned across the diversity of modern bison populations, these finding are best explained by multiple historical hybridization events between these two species with significant genetic recombination over the last 200 years. Our results demonstrate that whole genome sequencing approaches are required to accurately quantitate cattle introgression in bisonPark, USA and a small number of wild wood bison. Read More HERE
Kankakee Sands Bison Restoration Efforts Have Ripple Effect Across Prairie Ecosystem
WTHR / Madison Stacey
MOROCCO, Ind. — When officials drafted versions of the Indiana seal sometime in the early 19th century, so plentiful were bison across the state that the image they eventually settled on was of one fleeing westward as civilization — denoted by a man’s solitary form, cutting down a sycamore tree with an ax — advanced ever further into what was then some of the westernmost parts of the United States.
Within a few more decades, bison would be driven from the state and hunted to near extinction across the country. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find herds wandering the Hoosier countryside, as was their tendency for thousands of years.
Unless, of course, you’re driving along a stretch of U.S. 41 North near Morocco, where a herd is making a major impact in prairie restoration efforts for the first time in centuries.
“We're not bringing back bison just to have for bison sake, but they're actually an integral part of the Hoosier natural heritage and history,” said Trevor Edmonson, who is a site manager at Kankakee Sands, the more than 1,000-acre enclosure dedicated to preservation of prairies. Read More and See Video HERE
Did You Know...
- Sask. climate scientist points to drier future. More HERE
- Officials prepare to welcome bison calves at Minneopa State Park.
More HERE
- 'Rebirth Of A Nation': Chippewa Cree Tribe Welcomes First Bison Calf In 20 Years. More HERE