Bison draw visitors who are just curious

The first two bison were a gift to Andy Yount.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
BAZETTA -- Andy Yount lives in two worlds: construction and wildlife.
His property at 2295 Bazetta Road is home to lots of Miller-Yount Paving equipment used in the business, but it's also home to 26 bison.
On a Monday, the pond behind the fenced-in home of the bison was full of water fowl. A few years ago, the front yard often served as playground to two wild turkeys.
Though Yount doesn't seek out publicity for his wildlife sanctuary, people do come -- often just from driving by, seeing the bison from the road and being curious.
"Lots of people stop to look," said Margaret Yount, Andy's wife.
Parochial school children from the Notre Dame Schools do plan an outing every year to see the animals. They usually bring two or three bus loads of kids, many of them dressed in cowboy hats and other Western clothes, she said.
The kids take pictures and look through the fence at the large animals.
But many other times, visitors just show up unannounced and ask if they can take a look up close.
Margaret Yount says visitors are always asked to stay outside the fence because of the bison's sharp horns. "They could just go right through you," she said.
How this began
Andy Yount received his first pair of bison 19 years ago for his 70th birthday -- a gift from people who worked for him, he said. Lots of baby bison have come along, and some of the animals have been sold for meat.
According to the americanwest.com Web site, about 60 million bison once roamed from Canada to Mexico, grazing the great plains and frequenting the mountain areas of North America.
The near extermination of the American Bison did not occur just in a few short years. The fur trade, which began in the 1600s, initially focused on beaver but then demanded that bison (buffalo) robes be shipped to Europe.
By the early 1800s, trade in buffalo robes and buffalo tongues significantly increased and caused about 200,000 bison kills annually on the plains. The 1830s to 1860s were the four decades in which most of the slaughter of bison occurred.
Nearly wiped out
Wagon load after wagon load of robes, tongues and, occasionally, selected cuts of bison meat, moved east. The arrival of the railroads further exacerbated herd conditions for the bison, and by the early 1880s, there were only a few free-ranging bison. By 1893, estimates were only slightly more than 300 bison were left in North America.
The National Bison Association estimates there are about 150,000 bison in public and private herds in the United States today. Of these, the federal government manages about 6,000, and tribal authorities at least 5,000.
Scientifically, the American buffalo is named bison and belongs to Bovidae family of mammals, as do domestic cattle. Because the term buffalo is so ingrained in American history, Americans still use it.
runyan@vindy.com