American bison

Animals in North America

American Bison 

The American bison is bigger and more muscular its European cousin. Its pelt is dark brown and on its shoulders and along the upper body and head it has this characteristic fur collar. On the upper back the bison has a lot of muscles, looking a bit like a hump, to hold the massive head. Especially the older bulls have big humps.

Bison are in general peacefully animals that love to play and taking baths in the sand or water. However Bisons can be very dangerous when the feel frightened, fight with each other or protect their calves. Considering their size, bison are quite agile and surprisingly fast. They can run up to 60 km/h and keep this speed for a long distance. Although their best defence mechanism is to stand still, build a wall around their calves, the hurt and the weaker animals in the flock and use their pointy horns. 

Once the American Bison was widespread over the North American prairie, where it lived in line with other herbivores and the native American. It is believed that there were living over 60 million bison on the prairie, before the arrival of Columbus and other European settlers. When conflicts between the native Americans and the settlers intensified, the settlers killed the bison till the edge of extinction. By doing this, the settlers wanted to erase the native Americans basis of life and expel them from their homelands.     

The bison's population began to recover after it became illegal to hunt them down. Today they live in protected areas and national parks. Regarding the IUCN there live about 15.000 bison in the U.S.A today.