Bison Belong
Giving Yellowstone’s Bison Room to Roam
For more than a decade, NPCA has been working to secure additional habitat for Yellowstone National Park’s bison. In April 2011, nine representatives from local tribes and state and federal agencies finalized an agreement allowing bison from Yellowstone National Park to migrate onto 75,000 acres of additional habitat in Gardiner Basin, just north of the park. The additional territory will help preserve the West’s most iconic animals. And NPCA will continue to advocate for management practices that are friendly to bison and other wildlife, as well as local landowners.
Yellowstone National Park is home to the largest wild, genetically pure bison herd in North America. Similar to other wildlife, Yellowstone’s bison seasonally migrate north and west beyond park boundaries during the winter in search of food and habitat in lower elevations. For the past several decades when bison left the safety net of Yellowstone’s borders they were captured and slaughtered or hazed back into the park. Bison are hazed and harassed because of a perceived threat that bison transmit the disease brucellosis to cattle. However, bison have never transmitted brucellosis to domestic cattle in the wild.
NPCA continues to work with the park service, wildlife managers, federal agencies, citizens, and other conservation organizations to establish other areas outside of Yellowstone for bison. We are working on the ground to ensure bison and landowners can coexist.
For more information on NPCA's Bison Belong Campaign and our work with the Greater Yellowstone Wildlife Alliance, contact Bart Melton, Yellowstone Program Manager, 406.495.1560 or bmelton@npca.org.
Learn More
- Learn more about American bison.
- Learn about NPCA's work to protect wildlife.
- Learn what you can do to protect wildlife.
- Learn about NPCA's Northern Rockies Regional Office.
