Bison - Sounds Wild
Wood Bison Reintroduction

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Wood Bison Reintroduction

In late May, 2015, a one-ton wood bison bull is loaded into a shipping container at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage. A month earlier, about 100 wood bison cows and calves were flown in a giant transport plane to Shageluk, and then released into the wild near the confluence of the Yukon and Innoko Rivers. Like muskox, wood bison are native to Alaska and were extirpated in the 1800s. The wood bison release is the culmination of a 20-year effort to reintroduce the animals to their native range. Wood bison are giant cousins to the more familiar plains bison, and are the largest land animal in North America.

Rather than fly the massive males to the wild, Fish and Game elected to send them by boat. Breeding season for wood bison is in July, and biologists knew the big males could arrive after the initial introduction established the herd. A dozen bulls were trucked up the Seward and Parks Highways to Nenana, where they were loaded on a barge for the four day trip down the Tanana River to the Yukon, where they could reunite with the herd. Each bull was kept in his own air-conditioned container to insure they would not overheat on the trip. Biologists plan to barge 16 more bulls to the release site later in the summer of 2015.