Are bison endangered?

Group files notice they will sue to make it so

April 14, 2011 at 10:03PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

You see buffalo all over the west (just stop by Custer State Park in South Dakota), so it's hard to think of them as endangered. But apparently there are only 20,000 in wild. The rest are behind fences, according to a story on Thursday by the Associated Press.

Now, environmental groups have filed notice they plan to sue the federal government to force officials to grant federal protections to plains bison as an endangered species. The groups argue that bison numbers have been decimated in the last two centuries from a population that once roamed the country.

The notice was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project. The federal government has rejected an earlier petition.

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
about the writer

about the writer

Josephine Marcotty

Reporter

Josephine Marcotty has covered the environment in Minnesota for eight years, with expertise in water quality, agriculture, critters and mining. Prior to that she was a medical reporter, with an emphasis on mental illness, transplant medicine and reproductive health care.

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