The Wilds safari park moves dozens of bison to South Dakota

Say bye-bye to some bison.

The Wilds safari park in Muskingum County recently moved 74 bison to the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, the park announced in a July 9 press release.

The 74 bison, which included seven adult females, four breeding males and 63 young bison, were loaded into two livestock trailers and driven 18 hours to the reservation on May 9. Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Elder Ivan Looking Horse performed a traditional ceremony giving thanks to the buffalo before their departure, according to the release.

"The transfer of these bison is a crucial step in our mission to restore this keystone species to its native range while respecting the profound cultural connections many tribes and communities have with the bison," Vice President of The Wilds Dr. Joe Smith said in a statement. "This collaborative effort underscores the vital importance of bison in maintaining the health of prairie ecosystems and in supporting cultural heritage."

Bison are a keystone species for prairies, essential to the biome's ecosystem. Bison's grazing returns nutrients to the soil and their wallowing creates shallow wetlands other species use, according to the release.

In addition to conservation efforts, the South Dakota tribe plans on using the bison for cultural education, community events and food, according to the release.

“The bison are happy and content in their natural habitat on the plains of South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation,” the CEO of the Cheyenne River Buffalo Authority Corporation Jayme Murray said in the release.

The Wilds' remaining herd of around 150 bison will become a " prototype conservation herd," a group directly managed by the zoo.

The Wilds, working alongside its sister organization, the Columbus Zoo, formed the North American Center for Bison Conservation, a collaboration between state, federal and tribal organizations alongside wildlife groups to manage and preserve large-scale bison herds.

Bison—the United States' national mammal—once roamed over 142 million acres of land, according to the release. Now they occupy less than five percent of that total. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, bison are "near threatened", meaning the species is not currently threatened but is likely to be in the future.