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(From the Calgary Globe and Mail)
In a remote part of the already remote Grasslands National Park in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan, a herd of plains bison is in the midst of calving season with another bumper crop of babies.
Three years ago, 72 pure-blooded animals were introduced to the 181-square-kilometre refuge as part of a Parks Canada initiative to bring large herbivores to an area that hasn't felt bison hooves in more than 120 years.
Now, that little herd has become prolific beyond expectations.
"I've looked at bison populations across North America during my career and I've never seen a population adapt as well to a system as this one has," said Wes Olson, who oversees the herd for the park.
"Traditionally, when you introduce new animals into a new landscape, their first calving system is around 60 calves per hundred cows. Last year, we had 90 per 100 cows. Every breedable female was bred and successfully carried those calves all winter," he added.
There are now 115 animals grazing the prairie, with 40 calves expected this spring. A projection that the park would be home to 300 to 350 animals in the next five years is way ahead of schedule.
Officials and ecologists say the bison baby boom is nothing short of remarkable. The reintroduction of the animals was to be a symbolic gesture to restore a species nearly wiped off the continent to one of the few grassland habitats left in the country. Now, it's as though the bison are turning back the clock - at least on this little patch of prairie.
Experts estimate that 30 to 60 million bison once roamed the continent. Bison were the lifeblood of aboriginal peoples, but when European settlers arrived, habitat was destroyed and the animals were arbitrarily killed and overhunted to feed demand for hides. The animals vanished in Canada, while about 200 survived in the United States - all in private herds, said Cormack Gates, a professor at the University of Calgary and co-chair of the World Conservation Union's bison specialist group.
He now counts about 431,000 bison in North America thanks to conservation efforts. But most are commercially farmed and bloodlines are muddied with cattle genes. There are few pure bison, wild or semi-wild herds and so-called "conservation herds," which are managed in the public interest by ecological groups or governments, he said.
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