Once roaming in vast herds, the species nearly became extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle.

[15] Spanning back millennia, Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains have had cultural and spiritual connections to the American bison.

[19] Buffalo was applied to the American bison by Samuel de Champlain as the French word buffles in 1616 (published 1619), after seeing skins and a drawing.

[20] Buffel in turn comes from Portuguese bufalo (water buffalo), which comes from Latin bufalus (an antelope, gazelle, or wild ox), from Greek boubalos.

[19][22] In Plains Indian languages in general, male and female bison are distinguished, with each having a different designation rather than there being a single generic word covering both sexes.

Thus: Such a distinction is not a general feature of the language (for example, Arapaho possesses gender-neutral terms for other large mammals such as elk, mule deer, etc.

The first appearance of bison in North America is considered to define the regional Rancholabrean faunal stage, due to its major impact on the ecology of the continent.

Compared to the nose of the American bison, that of the European species is set farther forward than the forehead when the neck is in a neutral position.

The proportion of cattle DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and bison herds today is typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%.

In October 2016, TNC established its easternmost bison herd in the country, at Kankakee Sands nature preserve in Morocco, Newton County, Indiana.

[55] The first thoroughfares of North America, except for the time-obliterated paths of mastodon or muskox and the routes of the mound builders, were the traces made by bison and deer in seasonal migration and between feeding grounds and salt licks.

In Senator Thomas Hart Benton's phrase saluting these sagacious path-makers, the bison paved the way for the railroads to the Pacific.

The bison are adapting well to the cold climate,[64] and Yakutia's Red List officially registered the species in 2019; a second herd was formed in 2020.

[70] The summer ranges of bison appear to be influenced by seasonal vegetation changes, interspersion and size of foraging sites, the rut, and the number of biting insects.

However, males and females from a hunted population also subject to wolf predation in northern Canada have been reported to live to 22 and 25 years of age, respectively.

Past and current hypotheses to explain the purpose of wallowing include grooming associated with shedding, male-male interaction (typically rutting), social behavior for group cohesion, play, relief from skin irritation due to biting insects, reduction of ectoparasite (tick and lice) load, and thermoregulation.

Wolf predation typically peaks in late winter, when elk migrates south and bison are distressed with heavy snows and shortages of food sources,[82] with attacks usually being concentrated on weakened and injured cows and calves.

[87] Wolf packs specializing in bison tend to have more males because their larger size than females allows them to wrestle prey to the ground more effectively.

During this period, bison charged and injured 79 people, with injuries ranging from goring puncture wounds and broken bones to bruises and abrasions.

[99] A major problem that bison face today is a lack of genetic diversity due to the population bottleneck the species experienced during its near-extinction in the late 1800s.

This is especially true of the Texas State Bison Herd, which underwent very extreme genetic bottlenecking, with a founding population of only 5 individuals.

[8] Researchers found that the average number of alleles per locus and the heterozygosity levels (a measure of genetic diversity, where high heterozygosity is representative of high genetic diversity) for the TSBH were significantly lower than that of the Yellowstone National Park bison population and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park bison population.

Custer State Park in South Dakota is home to 1,500 bison, one of the largest publicly held herds in the world, but some question the genetic purity of the animals.

Their descendants live in the Mexican nature reserves El Uno Ranch at Janos and Santa Elena Canyon, Chihuahua, and Boquillas del Carmen, Coahuila, located near the southern banks of the Rio Grande, and around the grassland state line with Texas and New Mexico.

Recent genetic studies of privately owned herds of bison show that many of them include animals with genes from domestic cattle.

[126] A proposal known as Buffalo Commons has been suggested by a handful of academics and policymakers to restore large parts of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie grazed by bison.

Proponents argue that current agricultural use of the shortgrass prairie is not sustainable, pointing to periodic disasters, including the Dust Bowl, and continuing significant human population loss over the last 60 years.

This agility and speed, combined with their great size and weight, makes bison herds difficult to confine, as they can easily escape or destroy most fencing systems, including most razor wire.

According to University of Montana anthropology and Native American studies professor S. Neyooxet Greymorning, "The creation stories of where buffalo came from put them in a very spiritual place among many tribes.

It was used in ceremonies, as well as to make tipi covers that provided homes for people, utensils, shields, weapons and parts were used for sewing with the sinew.