Golden Gate Park doubles the size of its bison herd
They have been living there since 1890, although population sizes have flowed and ebbed
San Francisco’s newest girl band is living it up in Golden Gate Park, meeting the neighbors and learning the lay of the land.
The “girls” are five 1-year-old bison, whose arrival at the park doubles the size of the herd that now calls the Bison Paddock home. All the bison are female, so there will be no unauthorized breeding.
The bison officially will be introduced to the public April 4, when the park celebrates its sesquicentennial with a series of events and activities marking the park’s 150th birthday.
Golden Gate Park has a long history of bison on the grounds. The park first welcomed a pair of bison in 1890, when a cow named Sarah Bernhardt and a bull that answered to the name of Ben Harrison began roaming the fields of the park.
In 1899, the herd, which now included several other bison, was moved from the Music Concourse to its present location at the paddock, just west of Spreckels Lake along John F. Kennedy Drive.
The bison were part of conservation efforts to keep the majestic American behemoths from going extinct, and at one point, Golden Gate Park hosted about 30 head. More than 100 calves were born during the conservation project. The park has had only female bison for the past 25 years.
The population has risen and fallen through the decades as the herd battled bovine tuberculosis, relocation and old age, but in 1984, philanthropist and investment banker Richard Blum gifted his wife, then San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, with a pair of bison for the park. Over the years, new bison have
come and gone, and the five older bison are descendants of that original pair.
Names for the bison over the years have taken on many themes, including members of the Shakespearean royal family, salutes to Native Americans and simple descriptors such as Last Cow. The five older bison at the park go by Betsy, Bailey, Belatrix, Buttercup and Bambi. A sixth bison, Brunhilde, died in August.
Sarah Madland, a spokeswoman for the city parks department, says the new quintet don’t yet have names, but they will by their official debut in April.
The benefactor of the new bison, bought from a ranch in Northern California where they were destined to become steaks and burgers, has a familiar name. Blum and nowU.S. Sen. Feinstein donated $50,000 to secure the animals, continuing their commitment to keeping the bison herd thriving.
Nancy Chan, director of communications for the San Francisco Zoological Society, says the zoo is in charge of caring for the bison, all of whom are doing well in their new surroundings. The five arrived in San Francisco on Friday but are being kept separated from the established herd for 30 days — a common practice at zoos when introducing new animals.
The new girls have had some contact with their elder sisters through the chain-link fence, though. Both herds are curious about the other, and Madland says when the young bison were unloaded, they touched noses with the older bison through the fence.
Chan says herds develop hierarchies within the ranks, but they are not anticipating any significant problems when they eventually combine the two.
“It’s always a challenge,” Chan says, “And these herds have been together for a long time.”
Under human care, bison can live 20 to 25 years; out in the wild, the average drops to 15.