Talk:American bison

picture caption in second section of article

Although a minor issue, the picture on the left currently states "wild bison and calf" when it is plain to someone who can identify sex that the two bison in question are an adult male, and and adult female bison.

American-Centric and misleading/biologically inaccurate information

This article (and many others on the internet) is/are incredibly American-centric.

The United States of America nearly extirpated wild bison populations off the face of their country (~24 or less were left in Yellowstone that escaped hunters in a remote area), and yet there is no mention of Canada's role in ensuring the survival/existence of the species and that of its sub-species wood bison (Bison bison athabascae).

Range information on 'American Bison' (Bison bison) is completely lacking in that it only gives placemarkers of American locations and none in Canada. Granted this was the extreme locations of Bison bison's range, so I suppose this is somewhat accurate, however it doesn't geographically best illustrate its northern, southern, eastern and western range extent.

The common name "American Bison" (I'm a biologist, it's a common-name, not a scientific one) is mainly used in the United States. I haven't heard it mentioned here much in Canada at all. Sure, it's your National Mammal and all, but the name is misleading.

Thirdly, Wood Bison. The athabascae in their genus-species (subspecies) epithet likely refers to Lake Athabasca in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada (which is an anglicanization of a Cree word for "grass or reeds here and there", and also in reference to an indigenous language grouping in the area). I will admit Canada did have its problems with near extinction of bison as well, but the most genetically pure group of wood buffalo are located either in some remote parts of Wood Buffalo National Park (the 2nd largest National Park in the world), or in Elk Island National Park outside of Edmonton, Alberta.

Elk Island played a huge role in the preservation of the species in North America. This can't be disregarded. It seems this article only highlights points relevant to American history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DasHip (talk • contribs) 22:51, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not clear what specific suggestions for improvement you're making, but if you have reliably sourced information that's currently missing (and it sounds as if you do) feel free to add it. With regard to the specific point about not using the term 'American bison', what alternative do you suggest? We can't use simply bison because there's already a page at that title, and we don't use scientific names in article titles... is there some other, more common term that still distinguishes B. bison from B. bonasus? Anaxial (talk) 23:03, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

The chapter Description needs cleaning up by someone who is experienced in unit conversions. A sentence like "Typically weights can range from 318 to 1,179 kg (701 to 2,599 lb)," makes no sense from a scientific point of view, it is far too precise. This looks like the original text said "700 to 2600 lb", then someone converted to metric with far too many digits, then someone translated that back again to imperial and made it "701 to 2599 lb". What would make sense is "Typically weights range from 320 to 1,200 kg (700 to 2,600 lb)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.119.18.216 (talk) 18:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Units are far too precise

(First time I wrote this without heading which made it kind of invisible. Moderator: please remove duplicate.)

The chapter Description needs cleaning up by someone who is experienced in unit conversions. A sentence like "Typically weights can range from 318 to 1,179 kg (701 to 2,599 lb)," makes no sense from a scientific point of view, it is far too precise. This looks like the original text said "700 to 2600 lb", then someone converted to metric with far too many digits, then someone translated that back again to imperial and made it "701 to 2599 lb". What would make sense is "Typically weights range from 320 to 1,200 kg (700 to 2,600 lb)." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.119.18.216 (talk) 18:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.119.18.216 (talk)

Inaccurate Map

The map completely misses the populations living in Oklahoma. There are several thousands living in Oklahoma. 021120x (talk) 02:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, the map is 10 years old, I assume a lot has changed in revitalization efforts. Here's new data (for the US) if someone can make an updated map Bison by the Numbers, Center of Excellence for Bison Studies, South Dakota State University, August 2021. They even have a State Data csv if that could be utilized to generate maps?  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 02:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Genus

Surely the article needs to be edited to refer to the species being part of the genus Bos and not Bison due to recent studies showing that bison are nestled within Bos? I ask here instead of editing the page itself because surely this has been asked before but I think we really need to decide what binominal name to use because the current one is inaccurate! Maykii (talk) 18:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)