text x_quick_Title2=Class: Mammalia~Order: Artiodactyla~Family: Bovidae~(Bison bison athabascae)
text x_quick=Where In the World~` There are an estimated 2,900 wood bison in the wild. (Once there may have been 170,000 wood bison.)~` Wood bison are found in six separate wildlife reserves in the U.S. and Canada. They are all descended from a "hidden" herd of 200 wood bison discovered in 1957 in Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta, Canada.~` Historically, wood bison ranged across much of central North America east of the Rockies.~ ~Take a Look!~` The wood bison is about six feet tall at the shoulder and is almost 12 feet long.~` A healthy adult wood bison can weigh up to a full ton - that's 2,000 pounds! (Some adults can be much smaller - to 800 pounds.)~` Like the more common plains bison, wood bison have a distinctive hump on their backs. Their coats are a bit shaggier and thicker than a plains bison, and their horns tend to be a bit longer.~ ~All in the Family~` The wood bison is related to the plains bison and a European bison called the wisent.~ ~Just the Facts~` Wood bison live in large herds. When there were plenty of wood bison, a herd might have thousands of members. Today, herds are much smaller.~` They're very loyal to their young - sometimes the father joins the mother to protect their offspring, and sometimes the whole herd will stand together to keep wolves and other predators away from the calves.~` Wood bison eat coarse grasses from fields and open woodlands.~` Wood bison mothers are pregnant for about as long as human mothers - nine months. Her calf may stay by her for up to three years.~` Wood bison can live for 18 to 22 years.
;Habitat
text x_hab= Wood bison live in wilderness lands in the United States and Canada. They stay in the central portions east of the Rockies, and generally prefer the climate to the north. They can tolerate heavy grasses that many other animals can't eat. When a herd of wood bison tears up the tough, course grasses and sedges in a meadow, they make room for new growth of tender young grasses. Other animals, like deer, aren't able to eat the tough old stuff, but the new growth is very tasty. When wood bison are around, all the grazing animals benefit. ~\
Wood bison also like to eat the grasses of open woodlands - that's where they got their name. A whole herd moving slowly through an open forest must have looked strange to the first Europeans - there aren't very many trees on the great plains, where the more common plains bison lives, so those bison-in-the-woods probably startled early settlers. You just don't think of bison being in the woods - they're always moving across huge, wide prairies in books and movies. Luckily, the wood bison don't know how to read, and they never go to the movies! No one told them they were supposed to stay out in the open, so they keep munching away happily on woodland grasses, enjoying the shade in the hot summer and the protection from the wind in winter. ~\
There isn't much habitat left for the wood bison. The northern forests that the bison like so much are being cut down for timber and the prairies and meadows are being cultivated for farms. Wood bison need a lot of room to roam about, and there are fewer and fewer places for them. For a long time, there were very few wood bison left. Now that their numbers are slowly growing, one of the hardest problems to solve will be finding large wild places where the herds can live.
;Food
text x_eat= Bison are vegetarians. (They only eat plants. Animals that only eat meat are called carnivores. Humans, who eat both meat and plants, are called omnivores.) The wood bison graze on grass and grass-like plants called sedges. Sometimes they like the grasses in meadows and prairie lands, sometimes they find tasty grasses in open woodlands.~\
Wood bison can rip up and eat grasses that are too old and tough for most other grazing animals to eat. Once the wood bison have pulled up the coarse, heavy grass, then there's room for new, tender grass to grow in its place. For that reason, other grazing animals benefit from a wood bison's willingness to eat the tough stuff. Having wood bison around is good for other grazing animals, like deer.
;Habits and Characteristics
text x_life= A mother bison very rarely has twins. Usually, she has just one child at a time, and she and her calf stay close together until her "baby" is ready to be on its own. A bison calf weighs between 30 and 65 pounds at birth. That might seem like a lot, but remember - mum might weigh half a ton! The calves are very well developed when they're born. Unlike you, a wood bison calf can walk and run just three hours after it is born! That's important because wood bison always need a new source of grass to eat. When they finish munching on one meadow, they have to wander further to find another one. And of course, the calf has to come, too - even if it's just a few hours old. Human babies, on the other hand, don't need to be able to walk that young, since we humans usually stay in one place for a while. (After we've "wandered" to the grocery store, we usually wander back home again!) ~ The calf nurses from its mother for most of its first year. (Some calves nurse for as little as seven months, some calves nurse for a whole year.) While it's young, the calf is cared for by its mother. Sometimes the father will help to protect his child. And when there's real danger, the whole herd works together. Gray wolves sometimes hunt bison, and the calves aren't as strong as an adult. So the wolves often try to kill a calf. If the herd sees the wolves in time, the bison will push all the calves into the centre of the herd and turn to face the wolves. Suddenly, instead of a nice, easy bison calf, the wolves are faced with huge, shaggy mum and dad bison - and all their one-ton relatives - all staring at the 100-pound wolves and shaking their huge horns. At that point, most wolves change their minds about having bison for dinner! ~\
Most of the time, the adult males stay apart from the females, so very often the wolves are confronted with an impressive line of Mums who will charge the wolves (or anything else that makes her nervous) to protect her calf. ~\
When they're between two and four years old, the calves become physically able to mate and have calves of their own, but the chances are very good that they won't. Bison seem to be impressed with size - female bison want the biggest, strongest bull to father her calf, and male bison chase after the most impressive females. So the young bison, just two to four years old, don't stand much of a chance. It's not until they're full-grown (for males, at about six years, while females may be full grown as early as three years old) that they can attract a mate. During the mating season, huge bulls fight for the best cows by running full-speed at each other and butting heads - the one who is the least dizzy is the winner! The males make a huge roar (or bellow) during the mating season that is so loud it can be heard three miles away. ~\
When the mating season is over, the adult males generally wander away. The bulls spend most of the year away from the cows and the calves. They may make small bachelor herds of their own, or they might chose to wander by themselves in search of grassy meadows and fresh, clean water. The females with their young stay together in bigger herds. That way, the mothers can work together to protect all their calves from harm. Dad may not be introduced to his own calf until the next mating season.
;Threats
text x_threat= There were never as many wood bison as there were plains bison. Once, there were so many plains bison that people thought they could kill as many as they wanted. Bison was a good source of meat, and their strong, durable hides were in great demand for leather. Eventually, people began shooting bison just for fun, as they rode past the herds on trains - it was considered a casual sort of sporting event. Naturally, the plains bison couldn't survive, and the species was almost extinct bef
