The bison population in Yellowstone National Park has been a longstanding subject of interest for state biologists. From the ground and also from air, biologists have been working to record the age and sex of the bison they see for an annual count.
Biologist Rick Wallen did a live interview on Facebook to share the 2017 population numbers and to explain the importance of tracking changes.
“I think bison abundance is an important feature of how we measure our success in conserving wild bison here at Yellowstone and all of the other features that we estimate each summer during our bison count help us keep track of survival and reproduction which are also important features to track and monitoring program in this type of conservation world,” said Wallen.
Even though the bison population has decreased since 2016, biologists in Wyoming aren’t concerned. The survival and reproductive rates are at a healthy number which means the bison population is going to be just fine.
