Environment & Outdoors

10/14 100% bison are rare - but Minnesota has them

The North 103.3 | By Lisa Johnson

Published October 14, 2015 at 9:21 AM CDT

Of the estimated 20 to 30 million bison that once roamed the great plains, only 500,000 are left.

And less than 5% of those are pure wild bison, free of cattle genetics due to efforts at crossbreeding in the past.

But eleven of those bison with no evidence of cattle genetics have been reintroduced to Mineopa State Park in southwestern Minnesota, and that has a lot of people pretty excited about the prospect of new partnerships ... and new herds throughout the state.

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Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson started her broadcast career anchoring the television news at her high school and spinning country music at KWWK/KOLM Radio in Rochester, Minnesota. She was a reporter and news anchor at KTHI in Fargo, ND (not to mention the host of a children's program called "Lisa's Lane") and a radio reporter and anchor in Moorhead, Bismarck, Wahpeton and Fergus Falls.Since 1991, she has hosted Northland Morning on KUMD. One of the best parts of her job includes "paying it forward" by mentoring upcoming journalists and broadcasters on the student news team that helps produce Northland Morning. She also loves introducing the different people she meets in her job to one another, helping to forge new "community connections" and partnerships.Lisa has amassed a book collection weighing over two tons, and she enjoys reading, photography, volunteering with Animal Allies Humane Society and fantasizing about farmland. She goes to bed at 8pm, long before her daughter, two cats, or three dogs.

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