There are about 300,000 American bison left. How many of them are genetically pure? I don’t know about you, but I would have guessed many more than the 10,000 quoted in this article. The vast majority have some cattle genes, it turns out, due to past hybridization efforts by ranchers. The largest “un-contaminated” herd is in the Yellowstone National Park. Scientists are doing DNA studies across the range of the species to develop a management strategy. There are plans to reconstitute large tracts of the prairies, and pure bison are needed to roam them. But my question is: how many cattle herds have buffalo genes?
Your fist sentence is a bit misleading/ Yes, there are 300,000 bison which is a mere pittance compared to what must have been here 250 years ago. But don’t forget that in the late 1800s some estimates suggest that perhaps only a few thousand had survived the great massacre. So overall, the species is thriving. The problem of gene introgression from cattle into this species is not new and has been reported in the literature for some time, but this is difficult to quantify because the genome of bison has not been sequenced and in all likelihood won’t be for a while. To my knowledge nobody in recent times has looked in cattle for leftover bison genes.
By the way, excellent blog !!!