FWS to downlist wood bison

FWS will publish a final rule tomorrow (May 3) downlisting the wood bison.

For those not familiar with the terminology, “downlist” means “to change from endangered to threatened.” That’s my own definition; it may not be found in any reputable dictionary.

The service said it’s changing Bison bison athabascae‘s designation from E to T because there are more of the big fellows in the wild.

From the FR’s pre-publication version:

“This action is based on a review of the best available scientific and commercial data, which indicate that the primary threat that led to population decline, unregulated hunting, is no longer a threat and that recovery actions have led to a substantial increase in the number of herds that have a stable or increasing trend in population size. Critical habitat has not been designated because free-ranging wood bison only occur in Canada and we do not designate critical habitat in foreign countries.”

TABLE 1.—Sizes of wood bison herds in Canada from 1978 to 2008 (data provided by Canadian Wildlife Service).

Herd Category and Name	1978	1988	2000	2002	2004	2006	2008
Free-ranging, disease-free herds
Mackenzie	300	1,718	1,908	2,000	2,000	~ 2,000	1,600
Nahanni	-	30	160	170	399	400	400
Aishihik	-	-	500	530	550	700	1,100
Hay-Zama	-	-	130	234	350	600	750
Nordquist	-	-	50	60	112	140	140
Etthithun	-	-	-	43	70	124	124
Chitek Lake	-	-	70	100	150	225	300
Free-ranging, diseased herds
Wood Buffalo1 National Park	-	-	2,178	4,050	4,9472	5,6413	4,6394

1 Excluding adjacent diseased Wentzel, Wabasca, and Slave River Lowlands herds.
2 Population estimate for year 2003.
3 Population estimate for year 2005.
4 Population estimate for year 2007.