The majestic bison, which once roamed North America in endless herds stretching from Alaska to Mexico , was nearly wiped out in the 19th century in the name of expansion, profit and “progress.” The history of the bison is intertwined with Native Americans , for whom bison were spiritual equals and a life-sustaining resource for more than 10,000 years. “The bison hunt is the oldest sustained economy for human beings in North America,” says Dan Flores, an environmental writer and historian of the American West . “One of the reasons why that ecological equilibrium lasted so long was because bison were so remarkably adapted to the Great Plains.” Bison numbers in the United States were reduced from an estimated 30 million animals to barely more than 1,000 by the late 1880s. Thanks to early conservationists and the cooperation of Indigenous tribes, bison were pulled back from the brink of extinction, a fate that befell other native species like the passenger pigeon.…