Transporting beefy bovine bison is back-breaking work

The instructions were simple enough: Capture 40 bison.

But the actual capture wasn't so easy.

First, crews flew by helicopter over a herd, picked out cows and smaller bulls, then flew low and threw a net over the intended capture. Then the fun began. Crews wrestled the bison to the ground, blindfolded it and hog-tied the animal's legs. The work involved of wrapping the thousand-pound animal in a sling, hooking the sling to a cable on the helicopter and then standing back and watching as it goes airborne was back breaking.

The next step involved moving the animal from the landing area into a horse trailer.

The capture of the bison from a herd on the Henry Mountains was part of a reintroduction program underway in the Book Cliffs area east of Vernal by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. So far, there have been two introductions. This one was to have been completed in January, but heavy snow postponed their plans.

Instead, the bison were corralled on Antelope Island, waiting for weather conditions to improve.

There are roughly half a million bison in the U.S. today. About 20,000 are located on public lands. The remaining 95 percent are on private and tribal lands.

Only a very small number of the bison are, in fact, true plains bison, purebred ancestors of those that once covered the American plains. The majority of animals today have a cattle gene in their DNA.

There are, in fact, only four herds of free-roaming bison, commonly known as the American buffalo, in the U.S. that are genetically pure, and the herd in Utah's Henry Mountains is one of the four.

The other three are in Yellowstone National Park, Wind Cave National Park and Elk Island in Alberta, Canada.

What does this mean to those persons standing their distance, marveling at the woolly-coated beasts? Absolutely nothing.

One report noted that "after a generation or two of rebreeding with bison, there was no visible way to distinguish between a full-blooded bison and a hybrid."

Ron Stewart, outreach manager for the DWR, noted that there is a move by some to preserve the original plains bison and that the herd on the Henrys could become very valuable in that effort.

Stewart said in his studies he found that after the slaughter of buffalo at the turn of the century, few animals actually survived. One report said there were only 22 wild bison alive in Yellowstone at one point. The other surviving bison were found on five private ranches. On those ranches, in an attempt to save the species, bison were bred with cattle to create hybrids.

Those animals now make up the majority of the surviving bison, which would include those on Antelope Island.

Stewart said his studies show that the plains bison are native to Utah.