WYOMING — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has found that three petitions present substantial evidence to designate and list a Yellowstone bison Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of the Plains bison in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the service announced Friday.
The service will initiate a comprehensive status review of the potential DPS to determine if ESA protections are warranted.
The Plains bison is a subspecies of the American bison historically found from central Canada to northern Mexico, nearly from coast-to-coast. Primarily abundant on the Great Plains, this species was eliminated from many areas of the country by the early 1800s. Following conservation efforts by landowners, Tribes, state, federal and other partners, today, there are more than 400,000 Plains bison.
Under the ESA, a DPS is a population of a vertebrate species or subspecies. All three petitions requested that a Yellowstone bison DPS of the Plains bison be designated in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
According to the press release, the petitioners presented credible information to indicate potential threats to the DPS from reductions of its range due to loss of migration routes, lack of tolerance for bison outside Yellowstone National Park, and habitat loss. Petitioners also provided information suggesting that regulatory mechanisms— in the form of management actions intended to address disease, provided for in the Interagency Bison Management Plan, overutilization, disease and loss of genetic diversity may pose further threats. The Service will fully evaluate potential threats as part of the status assessment.?
?The next step is to conduct an in-depth status review and analysis using the best available science and information to arrive at a 12-month finding on whether listing is warranted. If listing the potential DPS is found to be warranted, the Service would then conduct a separate rulemaking process with public notice and comment.??
The public can submit relevant information to inform the status review here. Docket Number: FWS–R6–ES–2022–0028. The information period will open upon publication in the Federal Register on June 6.
