Wood Bison, the larger of the two Bison species(Plains Bison, the other) are down to 2500 animals in Canada's Northwest Territories.................As a result, the Territories SPECIES AT RISK COMMITTEE have labeled them "threatened and in need of protection.............Disease, habitat shrinkage and predation synergizing to dampen this struggling species.........Historically, the range of the wood bison was generally north of that occupied by the plains bison and included most boreal regions of northern Alberta; northeastern British Columbia; a small portion of northwestern Saskatchewan; the western Northwest Territories; most of the Yukon Territory; and much of interior Alaska......................... During the early 1800s, wood bison numbers were estimated at 168,000 in Canada, but by the late 1800s, the subspecies was nearly eliminated with only a few hundred remaining

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Wood bison now a 'threatened' N.W.T. species

Species-at-risk committee finds only 2,500 remain in the territory

By Guy Quenneville, CBC News Posted: Apr 24, 2016 6:00 AM CT

Better drive with extra care when you see a wood bison on the side of a highway in the Northwest Territories: the burly beasts have joined Western toads, boreal caribou and polar bears on the territory's list of species at risk.

Once found abundantly across the western portion

of the NorthWest Territories, Plains Bison are shrinking in #'s

An independent committee announced Friday that the remaining 2,500 wood bison in the territory should now be considered a threatened species.

"The numbers are not that high," said Dr. Suzanne Carrière, an alternate chairperson for the N.W.T. Species at Risk Committee, an independent body of experts that reassess the biological statuses of various species.

"We do have wood bison in the thousands, but they do have quite the possibility to disappear in our children's lifetime [and] should be accounted for."

Increased predation, disease to blame 

The new label for wood bison comes as a result of "population decline in the last three bison generations and the cumulative effect of threats such as disease, increased predation, human-caused mortality and various factors contributing to the loss of wood bison habitat," according to a statement issued by the committee.

• Anthrax confirmed in bison at Wood Buffalo National Park

The committee rates the status of species on a seven-category scale, with the highest category branding a species as "extinct."

At "threatened," wood bison fall squarely on the middle of that scale.

According to the committee, the Northwest Territories are home to 32 per cent of the global population of wood bison. The animal once roamed the majority of the territory's western region. 

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