NEW YORK, New York, November 24, 2008 (ENS) – Americans are out of touch with the fact that the American bison, or buffalo, is in trouble as a wild species, but they do love them as an important symbol of their country, and as a meal on the dinner table.

These views were expressed in a public survey released by the Wildlife Conservation Society at a national conference on restoring bison populations in North America held last week in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The survey is part of an effort spearheaded by the American Bison Society, which is a program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based at New York’s Bronx Zoo.

The American Bison Society aims to achieve ecological restoration in the next 100 years by encouraging government agencies, conservation groups, ranchers, and others to do all they can to restore the bison’s ecological role as an important species.

The national survey asked 2,000 Americans more than 50 questions about bison to gage public awareness about this iconic species, as conservationists grapple with how to best restore populations to the American West and elsewhere.

The survey showed that fewer than 10 percent understood how many bison remain in the United States.

American bison (Photo © Julie Larsen
Maher courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society)

More than 74 percent of those surveyed believe that bison are an extremely important living symbol of the American West, and more than half view the bison as emblematic as a symbol of America as whole.

Before European settlers arrived in North America, at least 30 million bison are estimated to have roamed the Great Plains and grasslands from Alaska to Mexico. Bison dominated the prairies for nearly 10,000 years, shaping the land with their grazing patterns and migrations.

They were wiped out by commercial hunting and habitat loss that resulted from the settlers’ westward expansion.

While an estimated 500,000 bison remain in the United States, most of those animals live on private ranches, with only about 9,000 plains bison considered free-ranging in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. An additional 7,000 free-ranging wood bison live in Canada.

Today, the genetically purest descendants of those wild bison are the targets of a government campaign that has slaughtered over 5,000 wild bison since 1985. Domestic cattle have encroached into the bison’s native range, which raises the specter of disease transmission from bison to cattle. Despite the fact that there has not been one case of Brucella abortus transmission from wild bison to cattle, bison are not tolerated outside Yellowstone National Park by Montana’s livestock industry and the state and federal agencies that back them.

The National Park Service, U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Montana Department of Livestock permit and participate in the killing of American bison within and migrating from Yellowstone National Park.

Yet the Yellowstone population, unlike most other bison populations held in the public trust, are genetically pure Bison bison, unmixed with cattle breeds.

“The results of this survey clearly show that the American public wants more to be done to restore the bison,” said Dr. Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “We know it will take decades of strategic planning and a wide group of stakeholders will need to take appropriate action.”

Wildlife Conservation Society is calling on the federal government to better coordinate management of bison across federal agencies, take down barriers to the production and sale of ecologically raised bison meat, and work with Canada and Mexico on bison management.

Progress is already being made, Redford said. For example, last month, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced an initiative that will work with state, tribal and agricultural interests to strengthen bison conservation efforts to help bison recover and thrive.

Forty percent of survey respondents said that they have tried eating bison and 83 percent of those said it tastes as good or better than beef.

Redford said, “The survey also showed that one road to bison conservation may be a pragmatic, market-based approach, namely to grow sustainable markets for wild, free-ranging bison meat.”

The three-day conference entitled “Building blocks for bison ecological restoration,” was co-sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, American Prairie Foundation, Linden Trust for Conservation, The Nature Conservancy, Safari Club International, and World Wildlife Fund.

The conference was attended by more than 100 participants and covered all aspects of bison ecological restoration. It was attended by representatives from U.S. federal, state and Canadian agencies, private ranchers, and indigenous groups.

Ecological restoration will likely take a century, says the Wildlife Conservation Society, and will only be realized through collaboration with a broad range of public, private and indigenous partners.

Ecological restoration of North American bison would occur when large herds of plains and wood bison can move freely across extensive landscapes within all major habitats of their historic ranges, said Redford. It would include bison interacting with the fullest possible set of other native species, as well as inspiring, sustaining and connecting human cultures.

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PONGOLA GAME RESERVE, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, March 17, 2008 (ENS) – Pongola Game Reserve, a privately owned reserve in northern KwaZulu Natal province where relocated black rhinos are thriving, was the scene of a rhino survival celebration Friday.

After bringing Africa’s black rhinos back from the brink of extinction, the global conservation organization WWF celebrated the first decade of its African Rhino Program by inviting more countries to become involved.

Celebrants included government and wildlife representatives, community representatives and ecotourism operators from South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, all countries that are now participants in the WWF African Rhino Program.

Also on hand were the directors or deputy directors of the national wildlife services of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia – countries where WWF is exploring expansion of the successful conservation program.

“What we have shown is that in partnership with governments and communities and business it is possible to stave off extinction for the rhino in some of its former range,” said WWF International’s Species program Director Dr. Susan Lieberman.

“The task now,” she said, “is to secure a future for the rhino in the rest of its range, where threats from poaching and development urgently need to be addressed.”

One of 12 black rhinos relocated to
the Pongola Game Reserve in 2006
(Photo courtesy Pongola
Game Reserve)

Africa’s savannas once were inhabited by more than a million white and black rhinos. But hunting by European settlers wiped out most of the animals, whose horns are valued for ornamental and medicinal purposes.

The southern white rhino was close to extinction by the late 19th century. Trade in rhino horn peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, when huge quantities were shipped to the lucrative markets of the Middle East and Asia.

Responding to the crisis, both species of African rhino were listed in 1977 in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES, which prohibits all international trade of rhino parts and products.

Despite this international legal protection, the black rhino population at its lowest point dipped to 2,400 in 1995. In 1997, there were 8,466 white rhinos and 2,599 black rhinos remaining in the wild.

Today, there are 14,500 white rhinos and nearly 4,000 of the more endangered black rhinos.

Populations of white rhino in South Africa and Swaziland have even been moved to CITES Appendix II which allows strictly regulated trade. In these two countries limited sustainable use options have provided economic incentives for further investment in rhino conservation.

“What we know from looking back at the last 10 years is that sustained conservation can and does work,” says George Kampamba, WWF International’s African Rhino Program coordinator.

According to the African Rhino Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, Africa’s white and black rhino numbers have shown annual growth rates of 6.8 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, since 1995.

Most of Africa’s black rhinos are found in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, where the species’ decline has been stopped through effective security monitoring, better biological management, and wildlife-based tourism.

Extensive assistance has enabled communities to benefit from the presence of rhinos rather than being in conflict with them.

Wildlife experts ready a sedated rhino
for release into Pongola Game
Reserve. (Photo courtesy PGR)

The African Rhino Program uses rhinos as a “flagship species” and “part of a process of ecosystem and landscape conservation, wtih a clear understanding that there are people in the landscape as well,” explained WWF spokesman Phil Dickie. “The accent has been on growing rhino numbers and spreading rhino populations back into their former range, connecting rhino areas by talking to landowners and taking down fences.”

“Rhino conservation in Africa is going from strength to strength,” said Dr. Lieberman. “But poaching, illegal trade, and unplanned development remain significant problems across the rhinos’ range and there is no room for complacency.”

Evidence of ongoing problems surfaced in June 2007 when a report by the WWF wildlife monitoring network TRAFFIC showing an increase in the volume of rhino horn entering illegal trade from Africa since 2000 was presented to CITES governments.

Poaching was found to be most severe in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 12 percent and 60 percent of their rhino populations respectively were illegally killed between 2003 and 2005.

“Rhino poaching and horn trade by organized criminals is an ongoing problem in Africa, requiring better cross-border collaboration between countries situated along smuggling routes, such as South Africa and Zimbabwe,” said TRAFFIC’s Simon Milledge, author of the report.

“To prevent horns leaking to the illegal market, rhino range states need to ensure secure management of horn stocks, whilst more stringent controls over legally-acquired rhino hunting trophies are needed in South Africa,” Milledge said.

Although WWF has worked on rhino conservation throughout its 45 year history, the African Rhino Program has an integrated approach that has been successful. Working through field projects, it has combined action at every level from local communities to global policy.

One striking, if unanticipated, indicator of the success of the program is that land prices immediately increase in areas where rhinos are re-introduced through a range expansion program, WWF has found.

In celebration of a decade of rhino conservation, WWF honored six leaders as “rhino champions” at the Pongola Game Reserve. “These rhino champions have made extraordinary contributions to rhino conservation,” Dr. Lieberman said.

The champions are:

* Emmanuel-Cebo Gumbi, known as Nathi Gumbi, director of the Somkhanda Game Reserve and member of the Gumbi royal family

* Kevin John Pretorius, regional director for the Phinda Game Reserve

* Clive Vivier, owner of the Leopold Mountain Game Reserve

* Manfred Kohrs, former chairman of the Pongola Game Reserve Association

* Dr. Jacques Flammand, project leader of the WWF/Ezemvelo KwaZulu Natal Wildlife Black Rhino Range Expansion Project

* Taye Teferi, conservation director of WWF’s East Africa Regional Program

* Also honored, but in absentia, was Jackson Kamwi, senior rhino monitor at the Lowveld Conservancy Project in Zimbabwe

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