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Bison return to Canada's oldest national park

Reuters
CanadaUpdated: Feb 07, 2017, 03:43 AM IST
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Bison make a comeback in Britain Photograph:(AFP)

Parks Canada has reintroduced a herd of plains bison to the country's oldest national park in Banff, Alberta, officials said on Monday (February 6), more than 130 years after the iconic North American animal last grazed the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies.

The conservation team moved 16 bison from a protected herd in central Alberta into an enclosed pasture in Banff National Park in the west of the province last week.

The herd will stay under observation in the remote Panther Valley until summer 2018, when the animals will be released into the full 1,189-square-km (460-square-mile) reintroduction zone in the park's eastern valleys.

The Moon illuminates the famous Morant's Curve offering a beautiful view of the frozen Bow River and the Canadian Pacific Railway at Banff National Park. (AFP)

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Parks Canada said bison were once dominant grazers and that bringing them back would restore their missing role in Banff's ecosystem.

"This would be one of only four plains bison herds in North America that would be fully interacting with their predators and shaping the ecosystem as they did over a hundred years ago," said Kasper Heuer, the bison reintroduction project manager.

Those predators will include wolves and bears native to the park.

Partially frozen Bow River makes its way through the Alberta's Banff National Park in Lake Louise. (AFP)

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Ten pregnant female bison and six young bulls were disease tested and radio-collared before being herded into five shipping containers and driven 400 km (250 miles) across Alberta by truck. The conservation team taped rubber hoses to their horns to prevent the animals injuring each other while in transit.

Since the Panther Valley is not accessible by road, officials attached the shipping containers by a long line to a helicopter and flew them in one at a time for the last 25 km (16 miles).

Vast bison herds of up to 30 million animals once migrated freely across North America. The animal was nearly hunted to extinction, and rangers estimate bison have not grazed in Banff National Park since before it was established in 1885.

Bison have great spiritual meaning for North America's aboriginal groups, having once provided an important source of food, clothing, and shelter. The reintroduction also coincides with the 150th anniversary of Canada's 1867 confederation into a federal union.

Cargo train passes through the famous Morant's Curve offering a beautiful view of the frozen Bow River. (AFP)

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(Reuters)