Grand Canyon to make second run at corralling bison herd

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — In the two years since the Grand Canyon approved a plan to reduce the number of bison roaming in the national park, the herd has only grown in size.

No one is sure exactly how many of the massive animals call far northern Arizona home because they're hard to count amid the Ponderosa pine trees, but it's in the hundreds. Left unchecked, the herd could reach 1,500 in several years, severely damaging the landscape and water resources, the park says.

The reduction plan has been hampered by weather and disagreements over how to kill some of the bison if shipping them off isn't enough. The Grand Canyon tried to round up some animals last year, but wintry weather set in and the bison headed farther north on a plateau.

The park is taking a second run at capturing this month.

“We're getting a little late start,” said Jan Balsom, a senior adviser at the park.

The Grand Canyon bison are descendants of those introduced to northern Arizona in the early 1900s as part of a ranching operation to crossbreed them with cattle. The state of Arizona now owns them and has an annual draw for tags on the neighboring Kaibab National Forest.

The National Park Service released a plan in September 2017 that called for a mix of corralling the animals near the highway that leads to the Grand Canyon's North Rim, and for skilled volunteers to shoot a certain number of bison inside and outside the park. It has made no significant progress on guidelines for lethal options.

The Park Service fenced off watering holes on the North Rim to try to force bison into the national forest, where they legally can be hunted. But it didn't keep the bison out.

The 25 hunters who drew tags in a state hunt earlier this year came up nearly empty-handed, bagging just two animals. The Arizona Game and Fish Commission recently amended the spring hunts for 2020 and 2021 to give hunters more time overall to kill bison.

Meanwhile, the animals' population is growing.

The park hopes to corral dozens of the animals at the North Rim, where the bison breed exclusively after hunting pressure forced them out of the forest about a decade ago. It uses thumb-size pellets to lure the bison into 8-foot-high corrals that can hold up to 100 animals.