Historic Distribution and Challenges to Bison Recovery in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert(Mexico)
RURIK LIST,∗†† GERARDO CEBALLOS,∗ CHARLES CURTIN,† PETER J. P. GOGAN,‡ JESUS PACHECO, ´ ∗ AND JOE TRUETT§ ∗Instituto de Ecolog´ıa, Universidad Nacional Aut´onoma de M´exico, 3er Circuito Exteriror Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoac´an, 04510 M´exico, D. F. M´exico †Arid Lands Project, P.O. Box 29, Animas, NM 88020 ‡USGS – Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, U.S.A. §Turner Endangered Species Fund, P.O. Box 211, Glenwood, NM 88039, U.S.A
. Abstract: Ecologists and conservationists have long assumed that large grazers, including bison (Bison bison), did not occur in post-Pleistocene southwestern North America.
Re-introduced Bison on the El Uno Ranch in present day Chihuahua, Mexico
However, archeological records and historical accounts from Mexican archives from AD 700 to the 19th century document that the historic range of the bison included northern Mexico and adjoining areas in the United States.
Archaelogical records of Bison in Mexico indicated
by square boxes and Historical records of frontiersman, soldiers
and Explorers indicated by circles below
The Janos-Hidalgo bison herd, one of the few free-ranging bison herds in North America, has moved between Chihuahua, Mexico, and New Mexico, United States, since at least the 1920s. The persistence of this cross-border bison herd in Chihuahuan Desert grasslands and shrublands demonstrates that the species can persist in desert landscapes.
There is only one report of bison in central Mexico. Berlandier (1850) mentions that two bison were used to pull a cart in the city of Zacatecas in the 17th century, which suggests that bison ranged far south occasionally.
In northwestern Mexico the first written accounts of bison date from the mid-16th century. In 1565 Baltazar de Obregon observed hides, bones, and bison ´ droppings in the Paquime ruins of Casas Grandes, Chi- ´ huahua, during an expedition with Francisco de Ibarra.
Jose Agust ´ ´ın Escudero (in Di Peso et al. 1974), who was Vocal of the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics, visited the Casas Grandes region in 1819, where he saw and described bison.
Escudero (1834) often mentioned the presence of bison in Chihuahua.
Indian hunters killing Bison in 19th century Mexico
A detailed report from Sonora, by Ignaz Pfefferkon, who lived for 11 years in Sonora as a missionary (∼1756–1767) wrote, “In northeastern Sonora, in the uninhabited regions which border with the mountains of the Apache], there is a kind of wild cattle, called forest oxen by some, but known generally in Sonora and in the New Spain as cibulos or ciboros [c´ıbolos]. These animals have a fine, thick, curly hair rather like sheep’s wool but reddish-brown in color” (Treutlein 1949).
In his account of Sonora, J. Escudero (1849) mentions bison as one of the game animals of Sonora.
The earliest historical report we found from bison in northeastern Mexico was from the 17th century, when Franciscan friars found bison in the valley of Monterrey (Berlandier 1850).
All other reports for this region are from the 19th century. The first account (Dobie 1953) indicated that bison hunting was common in Coahuila in 1806.
From 1827 to 1829 Jean Louis Berlandier (1850) a physician-botanist of the Mexico–United States Border Survey, saw and hunted bison in Coahuila, Mexico, and reported their seasonal movement patterns.
Escudero (1834) reported that wars among Apaches, Comanches, Mezcaleros, Faraones, Llaneros, and Lipanes were fought over control of the bison herds, which abounded in the territorial limits of these tribes in eastern Chihuahua and Coahuila. He also noted seasonality in the bison movements.
General L. A. Guajardo (Daugherty & Lopez Eli- ´ zondo 1997) reported that a Lipan Indian from a party that attacked the Hacienda La Mota, Coahuila (Fig. 1), in 1848 was wearing a well-prepared bison pelt.
Lew Wallace, Governor of New Mexico, killed a bison from a herd while taking part in a hunt near the town of Parras, Coahuila, Mexico, in 1866 (Wallace 1879).
Mexican hunters killing Bison in 19th Century Mexico
Apparently bison were extirpated from Coahuila toward the second half of the 19th century, but whether they persisted that long in the Janos-Casas Grandes region in Chihuahua is less clear. We think it most likely that bison disappeared from the Janos region after 1820 and that the present herd is derived from reintroduced animals
The archeological record we examined confirmed the late prehistoric and historic presence of bison in five states in northern Mexico.
The oldest record (two molars and a phalange) from an individual of the genus Bison from this region came from Rancho La Brisca, Sonora, 180 km northeast of Hermosillo and 90 km south of the U.S. border at an elevation of 1000 m. These specimens have not been identified to species or dated, but are believed to represent the presence of Bison <150 1985="" ago="" al.="" an="" devender="" et="" font="" nbsp="" years="">
American hunters killing Bison in 19th century Mexico
More recent records are from the municipality of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, where remains of 6 modern bison of the Viejo Period (AD 700–1150) and 48 of the Medio Period (AD 1150– 1450) were found in the Paquime archeological site (Di Peso et al. 1974).
Numerous bison bones were collected by E.B. Sayles from the neighboring municipality of Janos, 1.6 km east of Ejido Tres Alamos (Di Peso et al. 1974; site CH D:3:11 Gila Pueblo Archeological Survey, lot GP 39961; M. Jacobs, personal communication).
Archeological evidence of bison in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, 200–300 km north and northwest of Janos, during AD 0–1700 (Agenbroad & Haynes 1975; Truett 1996; Fig. 1) add to the evidence for the late prehistoric and early historic occurrence of bison in this borderland region.
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