Eastern
Wood Bison -Bison bison pennsylvanicus- extinct c.1825
Throughout the eastern woodlands and as far south at least as Georgia lived
a large bison, very dark with not such a hump as the plains bison. Its demise
was due to hunting and habitat destruction.
By 1790 they had been reduced to one herd numbering 300-400 animals in Pennsylvania.
They were slaughtered in the "Sink", a large hollow in the White
Mountains of Union County in the dreadful winter of 1799-1800. The following
year a bull cow and calf were seen in the same county. The bull (shot the
next year) was the last known in the state.
A few stragglers remained in West Virginia, one killed near Charleston in
1815 but none others were reported until 1825 when a cow and a calf were
killed at Valley Head, the source of the Tygart River. These were the last
Eastern Wood Bison in the U.S.
Some Wood Bison were preserved in Canada until WWII when they interbred
with plains bison that were introduced to "strengthen" the herd.
There is rumored to be some left in the Northern Territories.
