Fronteras

Courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park

Tourists watch the bison near the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

Bison living on the north rim of the Grand Canyon have overstayed their welcome. Federal agencies recently moved some of the herd off park land and back to their original home on the Arizona Strip.

The herd has grown too big and is now overgrazing park land, draining already low water resources and trampling through archaeological sites. So the park service called in bison experts who used what’s called a “soft handling” technique to very slowly and gently encourage 19 bison into a trailer and relocate the large animals.

Grand Canyon’s Martha Hahn said the test worked.

“It’s a large victory really,” Hahn said. “We were anticipating it would work but we had a lot of questions around the wildness of these animals and how they would adjust to being in a confined area let alone trailered in a truck.”

Now the park and other agencies wait to see if the small group of bison will pioneer their way back to the park. More than 300 animals remain at the Grand Canyon. Relocating the animals will likely become an option in the environmental review process.