For some, bison are also considered sacred<\/a>. Over thousands of years<\/a>, Indigenous peoples of North America lived alongside bison, with the animals becoming a fundamental part of their lives as a supply of food, clothing, and tools, but also playing a role in rituals and ceremonies.<\/p>\n Then came the westward expansion of the 19th century<\/a>. As European settlers made their way across the continent, and in particular the USA, bison were hunted down to make way for land and railroads. In the late 1800s, the US army also began a campaign to slaughter bison<\/a>, recognizing the relationship between the animals and Native Americans, and seeing it as an opportunity to control tribes.<\/p>\n This harrowing image from 1892 shows a pile of bison skulls waiting to be processed at a factory in Detroit, where they would become components of things like glue, fertilizers, or bone char.<\/p>\n Image credit: Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library via Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (public domain)<\/p>\n As well as having long-lasting consequences for Native Americans to this day<\/a>, the bison population of North America was decimated. Before the mid-1800s, it\u2019s estimated that there were between 30 to 60 million bison<\/a> across the continent; after what became known as \u201cthe Great Slaughter\u201d, there were fewer than 1,000.<\/p>\n Thankfully, there were people who moved to stop bison from disappearing entirely. \u201cHad it not been for a few private individuals working with Tribes, states and the Department of the Interior, the bison would be extinct today,\u201d the US Department of the Interior<\/a> explains.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The result of these conservation efforts, which continue to this day, is that there are now around 31,000 wild bison<\/a> in the US and Canada, as well as roughly 360,000 owned as domestic livestock.<\/p>\n The largest proportion of those living wild can be found in Yellowstone National Park, the only place in the US where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times. Despite the population having been knocked down to just 24 in 1902, it now numbers over 4,500, with some recent years having even reached nearly 6,000.<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Bison_skull_pile.jpg\" "\\"")
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