American Bison
Bison bison
American Bison · Yellowstone · 10 August 2021
A bison on the Yellowstone grassland in August, the biggest land animal in the Americas and the one the park exists for. Bison once grazed the plains from Canada to Mexico in tens of millions; the Yellowstone herd is the only one in the country that has been wild and free-ranging continuously since prehistory. Everything else was rebuilt from captive stock.
It came very close to not being that. From perhaps thirty million animals, the population fell to a few hundred by 1889, and inside the park to twenty-three. The herd today is in the thousands and descends from those twenty-three plus a few brought in afterwards. The hump is muscle over elongated vertebrae, and it powers the head: a bison clears snow by swinging its head sideways rather than digging, which is why it can winter here at all.
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