The Antelope Island bison herd is a semi–free-ranging population of
American bison
The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...
(''Bison bison, ''buffalo) in
Antelope Island State Park
Antelope Island, with an area of 42 square miles (109 km2), is the largest of ten islands located within the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah. The island lies in the southeastern portion of the lake, near Salt Lake City and Davis Cou ...
in
Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particula ...
,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
. Bison were introduced to
Antelope Island
Antelope Island, with an area of 42 square miles (109 km2), is the largest of ten islands located within the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah. The island lies in the southeastern portion of the lake, near Salt Lake City and Davis Coun ...
in 1893. The herd is significant because it is one of the largest and oldest publicly owned bison herds in the nation. The Antelope Island bison herd currently numbers between 550 and 700 individuals. Though the bison on Antelope Island are Prairie bison, which was the most common bison subspecies in North America, the bison have a distinct genetic heritage from many of the other bison herds in the United States and they are considered to be desirable as part of the
breeding and foundation stock for other bison herds, because of their separate genetic heritage and some of the distinct genetic markers that are found in the population.
The Antelope Island bison herd is one of the two bison herds managed by the State of Utah, the other being the
Henry Mountains bison herd
The Henry Mountains bison herd, numbering 250 to 400 bison, is one of only four free-roaming and genetically-pure herds on public lands in North America. The other three herds are the Yellowstone Park bison herd which was the ancestral herd for the ...
. Other large free-ranging, publicly controlled herds of bison in the United States include the
Yellowstone Park bison herd
The Yellowstone Park bison herd is a bison herd in Yellowstone National Park. It is probably the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States, estimated in 2020 to be 4,800 bison. The bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are Am ...
(5,000 bison), the herd in
Custer State Park
Custer State Park is a South Dakota State Park and wildlife reserve in the Black Hills, United States. The park is South Dakota's largest and first state park, named after Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The park covers an area of over of v ...
,
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...
(1,300 bison), the
Henry Mountains bison herd
The Henry Mountains bison herd, numbering 250 to 400 bison, is one of only four free-roaming and genetically-pure herds on public lands in North America. The other three herds are the Yellowstone Park bison herd which was the ancestral herd for the ...
in south-central Utah (300 to 500 animals), and the herd at
Wind Cave National Park
Wind Cave National Park is an American national park located north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established on January 3, 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the sixth national park in the U.S. and the first cave ...
in
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...
(350 bison).
Bison watching is one of the most popular activities on Antelope Island, and the bison are generally easily found and observed.
Location and habitat
![Antelope Island State Park Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Antelope_Island_State_Park_Map.jpg)
Bison occur almost anywhere on Antelope Island, including the northern end near the causeway, however most of them tend to congregate on the southeast side near the
Fielding Garr Ranch
The Fielding Garr Ranch is a ranch located on the southeastern portion of Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States and is part of the Utah State Parks system. A portion of the original ranch is listed on the Nation ...
.
American bison historically have lived in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Typical habitat is open or semi-open grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semi-arid lands and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. Bison will also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. Though not commonly thought of as high altitude animals, bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are frequently found at elevations above 8,000 feet. Animals from the Henry Mountains bison herd are found on the plains around the Henry Mountains, Utah, as well as in mountain valleys of the Henry Mountains to an altitude of 10,000 feet. Bison historically lived in the high mountain "parks" of Colorado (e.g.
South Park (Colorado basin)) which are at elevations of approximately 10,000 feet. The
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...
includes a diorama depicting bison in this setting and the original specimen was collected from Lost Park, Colorado, in 1887.
There are no river valleys on Antelope Island, though there are some springs and some relatively flat to gently sloping plains, rising into mountains along the central spine of the island. Antelope Island sits at an elevation of approximately 4,300 feet above sea level with peaks to 6,500 feet. This is similar to the high plains of Colorado and Wyoming. Though bison in the park will wander over most of this range, they tend to stay more in the lower and flatter grassy areas of the Antelope Island State Park.
History
The American bison once numbered in the millions—perhaps between 25 million and 60 million by some estimates—and they were possibly the most numerous large land animal on earth. However, they were
hunted to near extinction throughout
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
by the late 1880s.
At the time of the arrival of early European explorers and pioneers, there were no bison on the island. As they became extinct over much of their range in the late 19th century, a small population was taken to Antelope Island. "Twelve bison, 4 bulls (males), 4 cows (females) and 4 calves were taken by boat to the island on February 15, 1893, by William Glassman and John Dooly." These 12 animals apparently came originally from a small private herd in Texas
and became the foundation for what has grown into the Antelope Island bison herd. By the early 20th century, several hundred bison were present on the island. The herd was managed from the
Fielding Garr Ranch
The Fielding Garr Ranch is a ranch located on the southeastern portion of Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States and is part of the Utah State Parks system. A portion of the original ranch is listed on the Nation ...
on the east side of the island and even today the bison in the herd tend to congregate in that area.
One of the early silent movies of the twentieth century, ''
The Covered Wagon
''The Covered Wagon'' is a 1923 American silent Western film released by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze based on a 1922 novel of the same name by Emerson Hough about a group of pioneers traveling through the old West ...
'', was partly filmed on Antelope Island, where a scene requiring a buffalo hunt and a
stampede
A stampede () is a situation in which a group of large animals suddenly start running in the same direction, especially because they are excited or frightened. Non-human species associated with stampede behavior include zebras, cattle, elephants ...
were needed. At the time the herd on Antelope Island was possibly the largest herd of bison in the United States. After much effort, about 350 of the animals were herded into a stampede and it was caught on this early film. The movie is considered by some people to be the first great Western epic and it established some of the clichés that persist in Western movies, such as
circling the wagons in time of danger or attacks. During the movie, seven buffalo were shot and killed for the hunting scenes. "Don't grow sentimental over the seven," said James Cruze, the director of the film. "The folks out there would like to get rid of the whole herd and they would, but for the sentimental hubbub that is always raised when they talk of rounding out the buffalo. The animals are worthless - there isn't worse meat on earth to eat - and they ruin the whole territory for cattle grazing purposes. So the buffalo remain - sentimental reminders of the America of the past."
It seems that profit was the principal motive for Mr. Dooly to establish the herd on Antelope Island. By the 1890s the American bison was extinct over most of its former range and was becoming quite rare. Apparently Dooly felt that he could ranch the buffalo and charge money to hunt them. When keeping the bison for hunting proved economically unfeasible, attempts to ranch them on Antelope Island were terminated.
Bison hunting
Bison hunting (hunting of the American bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo) was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of Nor ...
started on the island in 1896 and continued as a frequent activity until 1926 when the Big Buffalo Hunt eliminated all but a few of the bison. Thereafter, public sentiment changed during the 1920s and activists began to call for the protection of the herd on the island. Some small-scale hunting of the bison on the island continues to this day.
In 1926 a final large hunt was arranged and the bison were hunted, most of them destroyed in one great slaughter. The hunt of 1926 was covered by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine. A herd of approximately 300-400 bison
was
cull
In biology, culling is the process of segregating organisms from a group according to desired or undesired characteristics. In animal breeding, it is the process of removing or segregating animals from a breeding stock based on a specific tr ...
ed to about 50 by a large group of hunters on horseback with modern rifles.
Dooly sold the herd to A. H. Leonard in 1924. Leonard intended to sell the bison to zoos, but was not able to corral them.
He next tried to offer the island and the bison to the United States
Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
. Leonard had hoped that a national park would be established on the island therefore preserving the herd. ''Time'' magazine cites "Congressional apathy" for the lack of a land transfer. Leonard was once again forced to change his business plan. This time he wanted to expand the cattle ranching on the island and to do this the number of bison needed to be reduced.
Leonard announced that a hunt would be held in the fall of 1926. The hunt took place in November, but not without protests from around the nation. The ''
New York World
The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publi ...
'' and other newspapers of the day tried to arouse public sentiment against the hunt.
Utah governor
George Dern
George Henry Dern (1872–1936) was an American politician, mining man, and businessman. He co-invented the Holt–Dern ore roasting process and was United States Secretary of War from 1933 to his death in 1936. He also served as the sixth Gov ...
received formal protests of the hunt from the American
Humane Society, Massachusetts governor
Alvan T. Fuller
Alvan Tufts Fuller (February 27, 1878 – April 30, 1958) was an American businessman, politician, art collector, and philanthropist from Massachusetts. He opened one of the first automobile dealerships in Massachusetts, which in 1920 was recogniz ...
and Boston mayor
Malcolm Nichols
Malcolm Edwin Nichols (May 8, 1876 – February 7, 1951) was a journalist and a U.S. political figure. Nichols served as the Mayor of Boston in the late 1920s. He came from a Boston Brahmin family and was the most recent Republican to serve in t ...
. Governor Dern declined to prevent the hunt, stating "Antelope Island and the buffalo herd are privately owned."
The hunt took place with noted participants Ralph and Edward Ammerman of
Scranton
Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, and
big game hunter J. O. Beebe of
Omaha
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...
,
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
.
The remnant bison population that escaped the hunt was mostly left alone and began to increase again. The Antelope Island bison herd and the island remained in private hands until 1969 when the northern of the island were purchased by the State of Utah. In 1981, the State of Utah purchased the
Fielding Garr Ranch
The Fielding Garr Ranch is a ranch located on the southeastern portion of Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States and is part of the Utah State Parks system. A portion of the original ranch is listed on the Nation ...
and the rest of the island, including ownership of the herd which was once again numbering in the hundreds. Since that time, hunting has been restricted to only a few animals per year and the bison have been carefully managed and monitored for health and absence of disease.
Every year, in late October, all the bison are herded towards a central area in the Great Buffalo Roundup and sent briefly into pens where they are examined, weighed and vaccinated and decisions made on culling and selecting breeding stock. The majority of the bison are then turned loose within a few days and allowed to roam free the rest of the year.
The Antelope Island bison herd fluctuates between 550 and 700, and is one of the largest publicly owned bison herds in the nation. The reason for the variability of the size of the herd is that approximately 150 to 200 calves are born every year, and since this is prime prairie habitat for bison, with no significant predators, the herd can increase by up to twenty-five percent every year. It is felt that 700 is near the maximum preferred carrying capacity for bison on the island, so the excess bison are culled and removed. Bison from Antelope Island are often sent to other herds around North America because of their genetic isolation, some unique genetic markers contained in the population,
[http://static.stateparks.utah.gov/plans/AntelopeIslandWildlifePlan.pdf ] and because of their disease-free condition. Some are also purchased at the pen site in a yearly
public auction
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
and are taken as meat or breeding stock for commercial buffalo farms in other parts of the world. "Though some resent the notion of corralling a wild beast like the bison for what amounts to a physical, most understand that the state means to protect the herd."
Ecology
Antelope Island has large areas of dry grass prairie and this provides a nearly optimum environment for bison. Other mammals found on the island include
coyotes
The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...
,
bobcats
The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUC ...
,
mule deer
The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer.
Unlike the related whit ...
(estimated to number 250),
pronghorn antelope
The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American ante ...
(approximately 200 on the island), and
bighorn sheep
The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ...
(estimated 200).
Bald eagles
The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...
,
Golden eagles
The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known birds of ...
and various large hawks and falcons are also found on Antelope Island.
File:BisonHerdAntelopeIslandSP.jpg, A herd of bison on Antelope Island
File:Buffalo Bison Pair.jpg, Bison pair
File:Fielding Garr Ranch on Antelope Island.jpg, Fielding Garr Ranch
The Fielding Garr Ranch is a ranch located on the southeastern portion of Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, United States and is part of the Utah State Parks system. A portion of the original ranch is listed on the Nation ...
on Antelope Island
File:Antelope Island State Park Ranch.jpg, Antelope Island State Park, Fielding Garr Ranch
Genetics
The Antelope Island bison herd was considered to be genetically pure in the past, since there were no known attempts at hybridization between these bison and cattle, but recent genetic studies have called this into question. Officially, the "American Buffalo" is classified by the United States Government as a type of cattle, and the government allows private herds to be managed as such. This is a reflection of the characteristics that bison share with cattle. Though the
American bison
The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...
(''Bison bison'') is not only a separate species, but actually in a separate genus from
domestic cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domestication, domesticated, Cloven hoof, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referr ...
(''Bos primigenius''), they clearly have a lot of genetic compatibility and American bison can interbreed freely with cattle. Moreover, when they do interbreed, the crossbreeds tend to look very much like purebred bison, so appearance is completely unreliable as a means of determining what is a purebred bison and what is a crossbred cow. Many ranchers have deliberately cross bred their cattle with bison, and it would also be expected that there could be some natural hybridization in areas where cattle and bison occur in the same range. Since cattle and bison eat similar food and tolerate similar conditions, they have often been in the same range together in the past, and opportunity for cross breeding may sometimes have been common.
In recent decades tests were developed to determine the source of
mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...
in cattle and bison, and it was found that most private 'buffalo' herds were actually cross bred with cattle, and even most state and federal buffalo herds had some cattle DNA. With the advent of nuclear microsatellite DNA testing, the number of herds identified as containing cattle genes has increased. Though approximately 500,000 bison exist on private ranches and in public herds, some people estimate that perhaps only 15,000 to 25,000 of these bison are pure and are not actually bison-cattle hybrids. "DNA from domestic cattle (Bos taurus) has been detected in nearly all bison herds examined to date."
A landmark study of bison genetics that was performed by James Derr of the Texas A&M University corroborated this.
The Derr study was undertaken in an attempt to determine what genetic problems bison might face as they repopulate former areas, and it noted that bison seem to be doing quite well, despite their apparent
genetic bottleneck
A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as specicide, widespread violen ...
. One possible explanation for this might be the small amount of domestic cattle genes that are now in most bison populations, though this isn't the only possible explanation for bison success.
In the study cattle genes were also found in small amounts throughout most herds. "The hybridization experiments conducted by some of the owners of the five foundation herds of the late 1800s, have left a legacy of a small amount of cattle genetics in many of our existing bison herds." He also said, "All of the state owned bison herds tested (except for possibly one) contain animals with domestic cattle mtDNA."
It appears that the one state herd that had no cattle genes was the
Henry Mountains bison herd
The Henry Mountains bison herd, numbering 250 to 400 bison, is one of only four free-roaming and genetically-pure herds on public lands in North America. The other three herds are the Yellowstone Park bison herd which was the ancestral herd for the ...
in the
Henry Mountains
The Henry Mountains is a mountain range located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Utah that runs in a generally north-south direction, extending over a distance of about . They were named by Almon Thompson in honor of Joseph Henry ...
of Utah. It was founded with bison from the
Yellowstone Park bison herd
The Yellowstone Park bison herd is a bison herd in Yellowstone National Park. It is probably the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States, estimated in 2020 to be 4,800 bison. The bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are Am ...
. However, the extension of this herd into the
Book Cliffs
The Book Cliffs are a series of desert mountains and cliffs in western Colorado and eastern Utah in the western United States. They are so named because the cliffs of Cretaceous sandstone that cap many of the south-facing buttes appear similar ...
of Central Utah involved mixing the founders with additional bison from another source, so it is not known if the Book Cliffs extension of the herd is also free of cattle hybridization.
Genetic studies seem to show that the number of cattle genes in the bison on Antelope Island is very limited. In the future, it may be discovered that almost all bison have some genetic inheritance from domestic cattle, but this does not mean that they are not bison, especially if the cattle genetic contribution is very small. In some senses, this would be analogous to recent findings that many, if not most wild wolves have some domestic dog genes. An example is a study published in the journal 'Science' that indicate that wolves with black coats have generally inherited that gene as a result of ancient wolf-dog hybridization. Hybridization can often be a beneficial genetic event in a population, as indicated by the concept of
hybrid vigor
Heterosis, hybrid vigor, or outbreeding enhancement is the improved or increased function of any biological quality in a hybrid offspring. An offspring is heterotic if its traits are enhanced as a result of mixing the genetic contributions of ...
, but when a population or species is well suited to its environment there is also the possibility that hybridization could make them less fit. In a study done on bison populations where some of the individual bison had cattle mitochondria, it was found that those individuals with cattle mitochondrial genes were consistently smaller than other bison in the same population that had only bison mitochondria.
A separate study by Wilson and Strobeck, published in the journal ''
Genome
In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ge ...
'', was done to define the relationships between different herds of bison in the United States and Canada, and to determine whether the bison at
Wood Buffalo National Park
Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest National Parks of Canada, national park of Canada at . It is located in northeastern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories. Larger in area than Switzerland, it is the second-largest national park ...
in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and the
Yellowstone Park bison herd
The Yellowstone Park bison herd is a bison herd in Yellowstone National Park. It is probably the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States, estimated in 2020 to be 4,800 bison. The bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are Am ...
were possibly separate subspecies, and not Plains bison. It was determined that the Wood Buffalo Park bison were actually cross breeds between Plains Bison and Wood Bison, but that their predominant genetic makeup was truly that of the expected "Wood Buffalo" (Bison bison athabascae). The
Yellowstone Park bison herd
The Yellowstone Park bison herd is a bison herd in Yellowstone National Park. It is probably the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States, estimated in 2020 to be 4,800 bison. The bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are Am ...
were Plains bison (Bison bison bison). The bison in the Antelope Island herd appeared to be more distantly related to other Plains Bison than any other Plains Bison group that was tested, though this might be due to genetic drift caused by the small size of only 12 individuals in the founder population. A side finding of this was that the Antelope Island bison herd is most closely related to the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd, though the Antelope Island bison are actually plains bison.
Future
The
carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
of Antelope Island for bison is not known with certainty. It is estimated that perhaps 700 individual bison could live on the island without significantly degrading the environment or adversely affecting other species. The future breeding and genetic maintenance of bison on the island remains under discussion.
The management of the Antelope Island bison herd as part of the national strategy to return wild bison to more of their previous historical range also remains under development.
Bison
culling
In biology, culling is the process of segregating organisms from a group according to desired or undesired characteristics. In animal breeding, it is the process of removing or segregating animals from a breeding stock based on a specific tr ...
and hunting of the Antelope Island bison herd has resulted in some public controversy, and some groups are working to change this policy. Proposals include ending all culling and hunting, ending sales of bison at the annual auction, and moving bison off the island to a natural habitat where they could live without interference. Most wildlife managers feel this is currently unfeasible, saying that without culling they would soon overpopulate the island, causing ecological damage and would then undergo a population crash from disease and starvation. They also claim there is not enough large tracts of open range and natural habitat available to move bison. Currently, some state and national parks have habitat for bison, but most of these already have bison present.
If the bison were moved, special management would be required to maintain their genetic diversity. Most specialists in
population biology
The term population biology has been used with different meanings.
In 1971 Edward O. Wilson ''et al''. used the term in the sense of applying mathematical models to population genetics, community ecology, and population dynamics. Alan Hastings us ...
feel it is not generally desirable to merge significant numbers of transplanted individuals with a large, already existing herd or population, such as the Yellowstone Park bison herd since those herds are probably already at or near their carrying capacity. Introduction of more animals, from Antelope Island, might result in the deaths of an equal number of already existent bison; it is expected they would displace already-present inhabitants since current ranges are generally close to carrying capacity. Without special management, merging the Antelope island bison with another herd might also cause introduction of domestic cattle genes into herds where such genes are not currently present.
References
External links
Antelope Island State ParkW. Adolph Yonkee, et al., ROAD AND TRAIL LOGS OF ANTELOPE ISLAND STATE PARK, DAVIS COUNTY, UTAH, in Geologic Road, Trail, and Lake Guides to Utah's Parks and Monuments 2000 Utah Geological Association Publication 29Photos of Antelope Island State ParkWeber State University Department of Botany
Utah.com
*
ttps://collections.lib.utah.edu/search?q=dha_aibh/ Antelope Island Buffalo Hunt Photograph Collectiona
University of Utah Digital LibraryMarriott Library Special Collections*
{{authority control
State parks of Utah
Bison herds
Protected areas of Davis County, Utah
Great Salt Lake
1893 establishments in Utah Territory