Wood bison

The wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) or mountain bison (often called the wood buffalo or mountain buffalo), and Athabaskan bison (or Athabaskan buffalo), is a distinct northern subspecies or ecotype of the American bison. Its original range included much of the boreal forest regions of Alaska, Yukon, western Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia, northern Alberta, and northwestern Saskatchewan. An attempt is ongoing to introduce them into the wilderness of Eurasia by Sakha Republic of Russia.

Pure-bred wood bison were believed to be extinct after the late 1920s as a result of intermixing with plains bison in Wood Buffalo National Park, then believed to be their last refuge. A nearly pure herd was found in 1957 in an isolated portion of the park. Herds called the Firebag River and Ronald Lake herds potentially have had no contact with the Wood Buffalo National Park herd.

Name

Some consider the word "buffalo" to be a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffalo", the water buffalo and the African buffalo, but "bison" is a Greek word meaning an ox-like animal, while "buffalo" originated with the French fur trappers who called these massive beasts bœufs, meaning ox or bullock—so both names, "bison" and "buffalo", have a similar meaning. Though the name "bison" might be considered to be more scientifically correct, the name "buffalo" is listed in many dictionaries as an acceptable alternative for American bison. In reference to this animal, the term "buffalo" dates to 1635 in North American usage when the term was first recorded for the American mammal. It thus has a longer history than the term "bison", which was first recorded in 1774.