bison

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has reversed plans to transfer control of the National Bison Range to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When tribes called for the change in 2016, they claimed the federal government had taken the land from American Indians without their consent.

One of the largest cullings in a decade is planned for the bison herd at Yellowstone National Park, says Reuters. Plans call for animals that stray outside the park boundaries to be targets for hunters and for the animals to be herded to tribal land for slaughter.

Nearly hunted to extinction in the late 1800s, the North American bison is now the national mammal, thanks to President Obama's signature to enact HR 2908, the National Bison Legacy Act. The new law declares the woolly, 2,000-pound bison "a historical symbol of the United States."

The bison will soon join the bald eagle as America’s national animal—and its only mammal, says The Guardian.

On the fourth try, the Senate passed a bill to name the American bison as the national mammal, said the Grand Forks (ND) Herald, saying, "The bald eagle may soon have a companion as the animal epitome of the United States."

Antelope Island, off the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, with Salt Lake City on the horizon, offers a rare opportunity for cowhands to herd wild bison, reports the New York Times. Participants are a mix of weathered ranchers and urbanites (who herd paperwork most of the year) who "spend a day on horseback chasing hundreds of bison toward corrals" in an annual roundup on a state park.

In Brentwood, a "para-urban" community in Contra Costa County on the eastern outskirts of San Francisco, an amalgam of groups combines to keep 20,000 acres of farmland in production and out of subdivisions, office parks and strip malls, says Kristina Johnson at Civil Eats.