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User:Toquinho905/sandbox

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My Responsibilities

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I will be responsible for the "National Parks" and "Evolution of Hunting Practices" sections.

Bison Conservation Outline

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  • Historical decline of the North American bison population
    • Plains bison – importance and symbolism
    • Wood bison – importance and symbolism
    • Social ecology - importance to indigenous people
    • Evolution of hunting practices
    • Implications for preservation efforts
  • Origins of wildlife preservation in Canada
    • Ideological development of the wildlife conservation movement
    • Contradictions
  • The evolution of federal government wildlife policy in Canada
    • Trajectory: preservation → utilitarian conservation → rational, scientific, bureaucratic management that promoted domestication of wildlife and Native people
    • Goals: preservation of wilderness and wildlife; recreational, commercialization, assertion of state authority and control over wildlife and Native people
    • Contradictions in policies
    • Social, cultural, and political forces
      • Internal colonialism – disdain for Native hunting cultures, assertion of state authority, influence of scientific knowledge, modernization agenda for Canada’s north
    • Significance and legacies over the long term – historical and cultural implications
  • National Parks
    • Buffalo National Park in Wainwright, Alberta
    • Wood Bison National Park in northeastern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories
    • 1925-28: Transfer of plains bison from the overpopulated range in Buffalo National Park to the supposedly understocked range in Wood Buffalo National Park resulted in hybridization between the species and the infection of the northern herds with tuberculosis and brucellosis (Sandlos, 2002, 95).
  • Interactions between Aboriginal peoples, preservationists, and government officials
    • Cultural and ecological interactions between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the Great Plains
    • Historical conflict between Native hunters and conservationists over bison
    • Assertion of state authority over the traditional hunting cultures of the Cree, Dene, and Inuit peoples
    • Social, cultural, political, and economic implications for Aboriginals
    • Ecological implications for bison populations
  • Contemporary bison conservation
    • Significance and legacies
    • Current conservation efforts – plans to reintroduce bison to Banff National Park


Historical decline of the North American bison population

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Shift in hunting practices

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After the introduction of horses, newly-nomadic First Nations groups could now lance or shoot bison, speeding up the rate of the bison hunt. [1] The bison hunt became highly commercialized and capitalistic, valuing quick profits over long-term sustainability [2]. Isenberg argues that cultural and ecological interactions between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the Great Plains were responsible for the near-extinction of the bison[3]. Cultural and ecological interactions created new forms of bison hunters: mounted Indian nomads and Euroamerican industrial hideman[4]. These hunters, combined with environmental pressures, nearly extinguished the bison[5]. Isenberg also explains that the introduction of horses facilitated bison hunting and competed with bison for scarce water and forage[6]. Industrialization also played a role, with the expansion of railroads, commercial hunting, and the fur trade market[7].

National Parks

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Buffalo National Park

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Buffalo National Park, established in 1909 in Wainwright, Alberta, received its first shipment of 325 bison on June 16, 1909 after being transferred from Elk Island Park [8]. The national park was created to preserve the plains bison that were on the brink of extinction in the mid-1880s mostly due to systematic slaughter, increased settlement and advances in hunting practices [9]. In 1908, Homestead Inspector Joseph Bannerman found a suitable location for a bison reserve south of the Battle River and arrangements were made to have an area about 170 square miles (108 800 acres) set apart [10]. From 1909 to 1912, a total of 748 bison were imported to Wainwright from Elk Island Park, Montana and Banff. After the final shipment arrived in 1912, the bison population at Buffalo National Park increased rapidly and exceeded 2,000 by 1916 resulting in the largest bison herd in the world [11]. The rapid growth of the bison population appears to have been one indicator of the saving effort's success despite having little information of, or precedent for, efficient ways to save and increase wild animal populations other than in the mountain parks [12]. From 1925 to 1928, hybridization between the plains buffalo and wood buffalo and the infection of the northern herds with tuberculosis and brucellosis resulted from the transfer of 6,670 plains bison from the overcrowded Buffalo National Park to Wood Buffalo National Park [13]. It would not be until the 1930s that park and wildlife managers would begin to study the relationships of species with each other and their environment and ideas of carrying capacity, so administrators were treading in unfamiliar territory when the reserve was established [14]. Today this study is known as wildlife science. In 1939, the decision to close Buffalo National Park resulted from a lack of federal funding and support, poor judgment in management decisions and disease and starvation that spread among the overpopulated herd [15]. During its thirty-one years of activity, Buffalo National Park played an important role in saving the plains bison from extinction.

Wood Buffalo National Park

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Wood Buffalo National Park, established in 1922 in northeastern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories, is North America's largest national park (44,800 km 2) and was established in 1922 (the original area was 26,800 km2) to protect declining herds of bison that had dropped from an estimated 40 million in 1830 to less than 1000 by 1900[16]. Despite harboring bovine diseases such as tuberculosis and brucellosis, which resulted from 6,673 newly introduced plains bison between 1925 and 1928, the introduced and resident population continued to increase to a number between 10,000 and 12,000 by 1934[17]. The bison population reached 12,500 to 15,000 by the late 1940s and early 1950s and the national park encompassed the largest free roaming and self-regulated bison herd in the world[18]. Despite these major population increases from 1925 to the early 1950s, Parks Canada documented that the numbers of bison decreased to 11,000 by 1971, and to approximately 2,300 by 1998 due to various factors such as slaughters, cessation of wolf poisoning, roundups for disease control, floods, diseases, predation, and habitat changes. These significant declines in bison, as well as the elimination of existing pure strain bison caused major political debate on the future of bison in the park and the presence of contagious bovine diseases[19]. In 1989, the federal government set up a panel under the Federal Environmental Assessment and Review Office to find solutions to deal with the issue of bovine disease and bison management[20]. In August 1990, the review panel recommended introducing disease-free wood bison from Elk Island National Park and possibly elsewhere, but due to a quick and negative public response, no action was taken[21]. From 1996 to 2001, a 5-year Bison Research and Containment Program (BRCP) was conducted to assess the prevalence of brucellosis and tuberculosis in, and their impact on, the bison population of Wood Buffalo National Park[22]. To understand the changing dynamics of this particular ecosystem, multiple research studies continue to this day.

References

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  1. ^ Records, Laban (March 1995). Cherokee Outlet Cowboy: Recollections of Laban S. Records. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0806126944.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  2. ^ Isenberg, Andrew. The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  3. ^ Ibid.
  4. ^ Ibid.
  5. ^ Ibid.
  6. ^ Ibid.
  7. ^ Ibid.
  8. ^ Brower, Jennifer. Lost Tracks: Buffalo National Park, 1909-1939. Edmonton: AU Press, 2008, p. 21.
  9. ^ Ibid. 2.
  10. ^ Ibid. 21.
  11. ^ Ibid. 42.
  12. ^ Ibid. 42.
  13. ^ Sandlos, John. “Where the Scientists Roam: Ecology, Management and Bison in Northern Canada.” Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer 2002): 93‐129.
  14. ^ Brower, Lost Tracks: Buffalo National Park, 1909-1939, 42.
  15. ^ Ibid. 170.
  16. ^ Ludwig N. Carbyn, Nicholas J. Lunn and Kevin Timoney. "Trends in the Distribution and Abundance of Bison in Wood Buffalo National Park," Wildlife Society Bulletin Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn, 1998): p. 463.
  17. ^ Ibid. 164
  18. ^ Ibid.
  19. ^ Ibid.
  20. ^ Ibid.
  21. ^ Ibid.
  22. ^ Ibid.
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