It looks like the bison population of Yellowstone National Park now stands at 3,300 individuals (2,800 adults and 500 calves). You can read the short article here: Yellowstone’s Bison population booming.In the latest Ben Kane novel (tentatively titled Manifest Destiny) I think I pegged the wild bison population of the five Middle American States (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and North and South Dakota) at around three million, wandering around the prairies in three separate, free-ranging herds. The story is set roughly 25 years in the future. I'm not sure if it's physically possible to get to 3,000,000 bison from the estimated 350,000 that exist in the country today. I know I spent a lot of time on the math when I brought their numbers up 500,000 in Middle America. I guess that's why they call it science fiction...
2 comments:
And the numbers of wild bison are well under 350,000; your number seems based on something closer to the number of domestic bison (which I believe is actually significantly higher now than 350,000).
The numbers of wild bison are closer to 15 - 20,000. Yellowstone's 3,300 are artificially kept low because of the ruinous politics foisted on them by the livestock industry. A couple winters ago, more than 1,600 were killed by Montana and the National Park Service.
Thanks for the clarification. In my books, I did indeed include domestic bison in the breeding program (at least in the 5 "free" states), for the very reason you mention - there just aren't that many wild specimens. I also conveniently overlooked that fact that for many of the domestic bison, the bloodlines are somewhat suspect. But, like I admitted, that's why they call it fiction...
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