Uh oh. It’s a Bison Jam. And it’s in a National Park, so they have the right of way, mere humans have to yield. No problem, yielding NOW. After all, Saturday was National Bison Day, so we’re giving them Free Range. . . .
This is a Free Chat, so all topics all the time, Bison included, and anything else on land, in the sea or up in space, because here comes another week of Life in the Pandemic, November 8, 2021. What’s on your mind?
WHoa. Happy Monday or maybe it’s Back Up, Turn Around and Run the Other Way, Monday. This is Free Range, our Free Chat with an environmental bent. And today we celebrate the largest of the North American Mammals, the animals who made possible the Westward expansion that nearly killed it off as a species. And the survivor who has slowly come back, showing us what it takes to get back from the brink. In 2016 the Bison was named The National Mammal of the United States.
Coming back from extinction and also giving rides. . . .
From the Discovering Lewis and Clark: “Capt. C & myself stroled out to the top of the hights in the fork of these rivers from whence we had an extensive and most enchanting view; the country in every derection around us was one vast plain in which unnumerable herds of Buffalow were seen attended by their shepperds the wolves; the solatary antelope which now had their young were distribued over it’s face; some herds of elk were also seen; the verdure perfectly cloathed the ground, to the South we saw a range of lofty mountains; . . . these were partially covered with snow. (Bison in the Journals | Discovering Lewis & Clark ® (lewis-clark.org))
And what do Bison do in their spare time? They Wallow…..
Lewis and Clark would have been staggered if they had known that within 75 years of their 1804 expedition, the bison would be driven to the edge of extinction. At the time of the expedition, the supply of bison west of the Mississippi seemed inexhaustible.
But considering the rate at which the bison had disappeared from the East, the decline of the “immence herds” of bison in the west seems almost inevitable. Towns, farms, and railroads are incompatible with grasslands and giant free-roaming bands of large animals. As people had already seen in the east, the doom of the bison was written in the relentless western expansion of the frontier.
Snow Plows of the Animal Kingdom:
National Park Service Lewis and Clark and the American Bison and Dept. of the Interior