American Bison Society

The American Bison Society (ABS) was founded in 1905 by the New York Zoological Society^[1] to help save the bison from extinction and raise public awareness about the species by pioneering conservationists and sportsmen including Ernest Harold Baynes (the Society's first secretary), William T. Hornaday, Madison Grant^[2] and Theodore Roosevelt.

Over 40 million American bison (Bison bison) once roamed the plains and grasslands from Mexico to central Canada, shaping the landscape with their migrations, grazing patterns, and behavior. By the 1870s, their populations had been decimated by westward expansion and over-hunting. An 1889 survey published by Hornaday, who would go on to become the first director of the Bronx Zoo, showed that approximately 1,000 bison remained in North America.