Part 2 to come: Wood Bison in Alaska Part 3 to come: Wood Bison in Canada Wood Bison are the largest land mammal in North America. Adult males stand 6 feet tall at the shoulder and measure 10 feet long. This is about one-third larger than the Plains Buffalo. The Wood Buffalo are also considerably heavier. Parks Canada maintains a bison weight database going back to 1956. During all that time, the records show only one Plains Bison bull that weighed more than a ton (2000 pounds or 909 kg). At the same time--when fully grown—one-third of the Wood Bison bulls exceeded this weight. Wood Buffalo females are considerably smaller than bulls, generally weighing around 1,200 pounds. Wood Bison are about 15 percent heavier than Plains Bison. Scientists say the larger size is an adaptation to the more extremely long-lasting and cold climate of the far north. Historically, Wood Bison range extends through the boreal forests of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and much of the Northwest...

Wallbanger, a formidable sprinting buffalo seen on racetracks of the 1980’s and ‘90s across America, Canada and Mexico, here ridden to a win by his owner and trainer Collin ‘TC’ Thorstenson.[/caption]

Harvey was an orphan buffalo who thought he was a horse, according to his owner, trainer and jockey Collin ‘TC’ Thorstenson and many fascinated spectators who watched him race.

Thorstenson said he was raised on a Sioux Indian reservation in the hills of North Dakota, was always fond of animals and trained small pets as a youngster.

He drove coal trucks in Wyoming and became a jockey and trainer.

Harvey’s story began in 1980 when his mother was shot by a poacher.

We’ve reported stories to you in this space about the early days of hard-riding buffalo wranglers running half-wild buffalo. Some amusing. Some tragic.

Often, they rounded-up and stampeded buffalo into makeshift corrals and loaded them into boxcars in some of the roughest ways possible, even dragging them at the end of several ropes.

At the time, it seemed to men who were used to working cattle like the only way to get the job done was to run the buffalo hard, and stay ahead of them.

In our BLOG of June 23, 2020, we published “American Serengeti—What is going on in Montana?,” which discusses the enormous wildlife project that is shaking the foundations of community development and progress in Phillips County, Montana, and Malta, its county seat, and nearby communities.
The American Prairie Reserve—APR, or simply the Prairie Reserve–on the upper Missouri River is a plan to develop a huge grazing unit—the largest nature reserve in the continental United States.