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Bison to return to Banff National Park

More than one hundred years after they were wiped from the area, Parks Canada is bringing back a keystone species to the Banff mountains.

Officials in the mountain town announced Friday that bison will be reintroduced to the park thanks to a five-year $6.4 million pilot project.

Banff National Park Superintendent Dave McDonough said at the earliest, the animals will arrive from Elk Island in 2017.

“We host over 3.5 million visitors here, it’s a very busy place and our vision is that we have a free-roaming bison herd that’s compatible and enhances other experiences for people,” he said.

Over the next two years, park officers will prepare the bison habitat which will be about 30 kms north of the town, with a size of 425 square kilometres, almost nearly the size of the Greater Toronto Area.

Acting Resource Conservation Manager David Gummer said about 30 to 50 of the species will make up the herd.

“Mostly one and two-year-olds, but with a few other older adult females to help, sort of lead the herd,” Gummer said. “Perhaps five years from then, we’d be really fortunate if we had 60 or 75 bison, something in that neighbourhood, but a lot is depending on their survival and their observed behaviour here.”

Because of the location, they’ll only be visible by backcountry-goers, but Gummer said hopefully there will be an opportunity to move closer.

Depending on how they adapt, they could move to another area adjacent to the first core area, which would then make their habitat as large as 1,100 square kilometres and there’s another area to the south which could be available.

“We’re really interested in allowing bison to start to use habitats that are closer to the south, closer to the TransCanada and may eventually be actually visible to the majority of our visitors, that of course visits this part of the park,” Gummer said.

About 21 kms of strategic fencing will be put up in certain areas to keep the bison in, while also allowing all other wildlife to move freely.

It’s also believed the bison will be attracted to their area with the forage available to them.

Gummer said they are also looking to restore predator-prey relations.

“They’re bound to be chased by predators and to move through that landscape according to all sorts of different needs, but hopefully the worse-case scenario of predator chase is right at the fence, won’t be as frequent as you might think when they’ve got all of that space to work with,” he said.

The species was effectively wiped because of hunting before the park even opened and Gummer said to have them return is exciting on a number of levels.

“They’re these massive, iconic animals that are really engaging themselves and so it’s very exciting from that standpoint and we know that bison had such a huge role in the livelihood of people here, before Banff was Banff National Park and in the history of western Canada,” he said.

 

 

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