Thoughts of the Wild, Wild West

This afternoon, 5 November 2013, the sun was shining and I decided to take a short drive SW of the city. After the snow this weekend, the gravel backroads looked rather wet and slushy, so I thought I had better keep to the paved roads. I have a lot less confidence ever since getting stuck in snow last winter, east of the city, without a cell phone! Couldn't resist pulling over, climbing up a small embankment of deep snow and looking through a wire fence to photograph this Bison (Buffalo) that was standing away from the rest of the animals. Photographed at a Bison and Elk ranch, SW of Calgary. More information on the Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch can be found at the link below:

www.crmr.com/ranch/

"Often envisaged as the iconic wilderness animal of pre-contact times in North America, the bison (Bos bison) population has faced near extinction from a once formidable population of approximately forty million in the seventeenth century. Dramatic conservation measures were undertaken in the early part of the twentieth century to give bison a chance to survive, but the species continues to face many of the same threats that have caused their numbers to decline for the past 300 years.

Bison played an important role in the disturbance regimes of prairie and woodland wilderness areas throughout central and northern North America; they also provided forage for large carnivores such as wolves, coyotes, and grizzly bears. Efforts are being made in Alberta and other jurisdictions to re-establish the role of bison as an ecological keystone species. Land use planners, First Nations communities and federal agencies continue to work in cooperation as wood bison numbers grow and the range expands throughout the boreal ecoregion in northern Alberta. Further initiatives are under discussion with the goal of re-establishing a plains bison population in southeastern Alberta in conjunction with other provinces and states through the Northern Plains Conservation Network.

Unfortunately, in Alberta free-ranging bison outside of the Bison Management Area in the northwest corner of Alberta are designated “livestock.” Because they are not considered wildlife, they have no status under Alberta’s Wildlife Act. In that northwest corner, bison is listed as endangered."

albertawilderness.ca/issues/wildlife/bison