More than two dozen bison that once roamed the North Rim of the Grand Canyon now call the Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma home, the goal of a pilot project to reduce the animals’ runaway population in the national park.
In all, 31 bison were loaded into livestock trailers earlier in September for the 1,150-mile trip to the Quapaw tribe’s lands in northeastern Oklahoma. It’s the second attempt to hold the roundup after weather halted the first try in 2018.
The Grand Canyon bison herd is the legacy of a failed experiment to cross-breed bison with cattle. Charles “Buffalo” Jones, a former bison hunter, brought a small herd to House Rock Valley, now known as House Rock Wildlife Area, in the early 1900s. The experiment failed, but the bison, now carrying small bits of cattle DNA, remained behind...