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Oakland Zoo has sent 11 bison cows and calves to the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as part of the Bison Restoration Project.
The bison, descendants of the iconic Pablo-Allard bison herd, have been living in a 13-acre habitat in the zoo’s year-old California Trail area. The cows arrived in Oakland from the Montana reservation in April 2018, and the calves were born here.
The Bison Restoration Project, also called the Iinnii Initiative, is part of a plan to restore free-roaming bison to Blackfeet land and to National Parks.
When the 14 bison arrived at the zoo last year, the plan was to mate the cows with two bulls coming to the zoo from Yellowstone National Park. Some of the calves born from the unions would be returned, along with their mothers, to Montana in 2020, and the breeding process would continue at the zoo. The plan is create a herd of several thousand for the Blackfeet, Glacier National Park and Waterton National Park in the Rocky Mountains.
Nature, however, sped up the plan when zoo veterinarians discovered that 10 of the 14 cows were already pregnant, and the herd almost doubled within a few weeks of arriving at Oakland Zoo.
“Since we didn’t expect the females to calf last year, Mother Nature nudged us into returning the bison to the wild a bit sooner than planned, said Darren Minier, assistant director of animal care at Oakland Zoo. “Luckily, we were well prepared, and have really enjoyed watching them grow.”
The zoo carefully chose which bison — six cows and five calves — would be sent to Montana, studying family relationships and social bonds. Female calves stay with their mothers and aunts throughout their lives. Studies, zoo officials say, have found that animals released into the wild do better when they have family and familiar company with them.
To diversify the original Pablo-Allard herd, the remaining cows at the zoo will be joined by two males that were born using a non-surgical embryonic transfer technique developed by the University of Colorado and Wildlife Conservation Society. This enables the zoo to introduce the new genetic line, diversifying the genetics of the Pablo-Allard herd without risking exposure to any wildlife-associated diseases.
The Pablo-Allard herd began when four to seven orphaned calves were captured by Samuel Walking Coyote of the Pend d’Oreille tribe and three Blackfeet companions. The calves were orphaned during a hunt on Blackfeet land. With their mothers killed, the calves shadowed the hunters’ horses for security, making the calves easy to capture.
The herd grew to 13 in 1884, and 10 of the bison were sold to Michel Pablo and Charles Allard, forming the Pablo-Allard herd on Montana’s Flathead Reservation. This herd eventually became the largest in the United States and played a key role in the preservation of bison by restocking and supplementing many public conservation herds, including those at Yellowstone National Park and the National Bison Range herd in Montana.
Dr. Joel Parrott, president and CEO of Oakland Zoo, is accompanying the bison on their return journey and serving as attending veterinarian for the herd.
The bison were expected to arrive in Montana on Tuesday, kicking off an “Iinnii Day Celebration” by the Blackfeet Nation. The 4-day long event will include blessing and prayer ceremonies and story-telling, all centered on education and the importance of bison in the Blackfeet culture.