Films

The WCS/Bronx Zoo Bison Story

The efforts of the Bronx Zoo, WCS’s flagship zoo in New York City, and Indigenous tribes to restore bison in the American West at the turn of the 20th Century is credited as one of the first successful conservation programs and has become an important part of our conservation legacy.

1905: The American Bison Society formed in New York at the Bronx Zoo to begin efforts to reverse the impending extinction of the American bison. Bronx Zoo Director William T. Hornaday served as the first president and Theodore Roosevelt was named honorary president.

1907: The American Bison Society shipped 15 bison from the Bronx Zoo to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge and Game Preserve in Oklahoma. This was the first animal reintroduction in North America. Over the following decade, the ABS supported bison reintroduction efforts across the American West, helping to reverse the species’ decline.

2005: WCS and its Indigenous partners re-launched the American Bison Society to secure the cultural and ecological restoration of bison in North America. This vision was grounded in the recognition of the deep ties between Indigenous Peoples and bison and the longstanding efforts of Indigenous Peoples to preserve the species.

2012: The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo announces the birth of the first ever genetically pure American bison calf produced by embryo transfer. The success is the result of collaboration between Colorado State University, USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the American Prairie Reserve, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

2012: The U.S. Congress recognized the first National Bison Day following a push by WCS and partners. Now, it is recognized annually on the first Saturday of November.

2016: WCS advocacy was critical to the designation of the American bison as the national mammal of the United States.

2016: WCS partnered with the Blackfeet Nation, Elk Island National Park in Alberta, and the Oakland Zoo to transfer 88 wild bison from Elk Island to ancestral homelands on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana.

2016: Bronx Zoo receives eight genetically pure American bison from the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. The historic transfer was designed to further the Bronx Zoo’s long history of facilitating bison conservation projects in the western U.S. and marks the first time bison have been transferred by a tribe to a zoo. Upon the transfer, Tribal leaders visited the zoo and conducted a sacred pipe ceremony, blessing the bison that were transferred from Fort Peck pastures in Montana.

2017: Six purebred bison calves were born into an eight-animal herd at the Bronx Zoo that came to the park as a historic gift from the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes.

2019: WCS and Pueblo of Pojoaque co-host an ABS conference to advance a bold vision: rewilding the North American continent with the American bison.

2020: In a large-scale study of wild bison genetics, a team of scientists funded by the U.S. National Park Service and led by the Wildlife Conservation Society identified practical actions to maintain the genetic health of bison herds on federal lands, setting a foundation for the successful long-term conservation of wild bison.

2022: The Bronx Zoo sent six zoo-born American bison, three male and three female, to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where they joined the nearly 200 head of bison on the 43,000-acre Osage Nation Ranch.