Alston Neal wrote:Btw, I had a customer ask me yesterday if we ever had bison. I said no, at least not since prehstoric times. Am I correct?
Yes & No.
http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/conservation/CGMP/CGMP-Bison.pdfBison
Natural History
Although these animals are not native to Arizona, American bison, more commonly
known as buffalo, are found at two wildlife areas managed by the Arizona Game and Fish
Department: Raymond Ranch Wildlife Area located east of Flagstaff, and House Rock
Wildlife Area in House Rock Valley east of the North Kaibab National Forest.
Approximately 250 buffalo inhabit the two areas, which are managed to provide both
viewing and sport-hunting opportunities.
Buffalo are the largest living member of the cow family. Live adult weights range from
1,400 to 2,500 pounds for bulls and from 750 to 1,600 pounds for cows. Bulls have
massive front quarters with a large hump above the shoulders covered with woolly hair
up to 1.5 inches long that also covers the head and forelegs. This hair turns tan with age
and is two to five times thicker than the hair on the hindquarters. The bull’s head has a
broad triangular appearance and possesses a beard or bell. Both bulls and cows possess
horns, but the male’s are much larger, attaining a length of up to 20 inches. Calves are
reddish-tan at birth and change to brown or black in three months.
The senses of smell and hearing are acute, while the buffalo’s eyesight is poor. Adult
buffalo canrun sprints of 35 mph for up to one-quarter mile and are capable of jumping
over 6-foot-high fences. Buffalo are gregarious and often form large herds. Although the
group composition of these herds changes constantly, the dominant animal is almost
always a matriarchal cow. Adult buffalo eat approximately 35 pounds of forage per day,
in general concentrating on the most abundant palatable forage, be it grasses, forbs, or
browse. Buffalo may live as long as 28 years.
Breeding typically takes place from mid-July to early September. The bulls are
polygamous, but do not maintain harems in the usual sense. Most of the breeding is done
by mature bulls of five to eight years old. A bull can lose up to 300 pounds during the rut.
Gestation ranges from 270 to 285 days, and typically a single calf is born in the spring
from late April through May.
Numerous state and federal agencies, as well as private ranchers, have been trying to
develop representative herds of free-ranging buffalo. Their goal is to maintain buffalo
populations that provide recreational hunting, scientific research, and aesthetic uses with
minimal management efforts. In these areas, hunting and live-animal sales are necessary
to remove excess animals and keep the habitat within carrying capacity.
Hunt History
Public buffalo hunts have been held at House Rock Ranch since the 1920s. These buffalo,
which were originally brought to Arizona by Charles Jesse “Buffalo” Jones, were sold to
the state by Uncle Jimmie Owens after their “cattalo” experiment proved unsuccessful.
When the number of buffalo was judged excessive for their Forest Service grazing lands
in the mid-1940s, the Arizona Game and Fish Department moved some of them to the
agency’s newly acquired Raymond Ranch. Other buffalo were moved to Fort Huachuca,
which the Department acquired after World War II. The tenure of these latter animals
was short, however, as they had to be disposed of when the Fort was reactivated in the
1950s. Some were sold and sent to the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and the remainder
were removed through a public hunt.
The herds at House Rock and Raymond Ranch wildlife areas remained, however, and the
Department set out to manage these herds on a sustained basis. A economic profit proved
elusive, however, as it was impossible to sustain sufficient breeding stock without
damaging the range. Moreover, the shooting of buffalo being driven out of a corral, while
making economic sense, became increasingly difficult to justify from a sociological
perspective. As a result, both herds were drastically reduced in the early 1970s by hunters
who had to take their animals in the field. The management of the buffalo herds is now
more in line with the carrying capacity of their respective ranges, with between 45 and 65
buffalo being harvested each year. A special permit has always been required for the
taking of this species.
. . .
And now you are educated.
But genetically these are more precisely Cattalo due to the misguided breeding adventures of two early Arizona entrepreneurs.
Since none of them are native to AZ...the present population started from a herd from Yellowstone.... or are they exempt because they were once here but killed off. I still think we need to reintroduce Grizzlies 
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