page_title: Yellowstone Park bison herd
section_title: Habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Yellowstone Park bison herd / Habitat
caption_attribution_description: Photo taken in the Yellowstone area.
context_page_description: The Yellowstone Park bison herd in Yellowstone National Park is probably the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Yellowstone is known for its geothermal activity and large mammals, especially elk, timber wolves, bison, bears, pronghorns, moose and bighorn sheep. The Yellowstone Park bison herd was estimated in 2015 to be 4,900 bison The bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are American bison of the Plains bison subspecies. Yellowstone National Park may be the only location in the United States where free-ranging bison were never extirpated, since they continued to exist in the wild and were not re-introduced, as has been done in most other bison herd areas. Other large free-ranging, publicly controlled herds of bison in the United States include the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma, Wind Cave bison herd, the Antelope Island bison herd, the Henry Mountains bison herd in Utah, and the National Bison Range herd near Flathead Lake, Montana.
context_section_description: American bison live in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Their typical habitat is open or semi-open grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semi-arid lands and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison.  Bison will also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep.  Though bison are not particularly known as high altitude animals, members of the Yellowstone Park bison herd are frequently found at elevations above 8,000 feet (2,400 m) and a herd started with founder animals from Yellowstone, the Henry Mountains bison herd, is found on the plains around the Henry Mountains, Utah, as well as in mountain valleys of the Henry Mountains to an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,000 m).
caption: Bull bison in Mud Volcano area
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