Up to 1,000kg. Average height of 2m. Running speed of 55km an hour with an incredible jump. Bison are an astounding animal with an impressive history.
Bison have been the symbol of Manitoba since 1870. But, they’ve roamed North America for much longer than that…
At one point there were as many as 30-70 million bison roaming North America making them impossible to miss.
With so many bison around they played a central and sacred role in the lives of indigenous communities and in the prairie ecosystem.
Always hunted sustainably, each part of the bison was used for food, clothing, tools and ceremonial items essential to the community.
Link to PDF of graphic showing traditional uses for parts of the bison.
As settler populations grew in the late 1800s so did the loss of bison, dwindling their once massive population down to only a few hundred. Governments made concerted efforts to diminish local bison populations in an attempt to weaken Indigenous communities who relied on them. The attempted extermination of the bison played a direct role in the erasure of First Nations communities and cultural practices in this territory.
Concerned about extinction, Indigenous groups and conservationists introduced laws to help protect the bison.
It worked and populations in the wild grew over the following years to about 20,000 where it remains today.
The FortWhyte Alive herd started in 1999 with donations of 5 animals from the Manitoba Bison Producers and 17 from Riding Mountain National Park. The herd has since grown with as many as a dozen calves born each spring.
FortWhyte Alive is home to the largest urban bison herd in the world.
You can learn more about these amazing animals by joining one of our tours like the Baby Bison Walk, our Bison Safaris, or the signature tour A Prairie Legacy: A Bison and its People.