Wood Bison Portraits

The wood bison is a race of the bison or buffalo which lives in the more remote forested areas. Until recently, it was considered endangered. In fact, it was one of the five subjects which the Canadian Post Office asked me to depict in postal stamps.

There is some recent good news for these animals. They have been breeding well in captivity and have been reintroduced into some wilderness areas of suitable habitat. They prefer rather open scattered woodland mixed with wet meadows. Sedges are their favourite food. In winter the heavy hooves and the head with its thick, wooly hair and beard are used to dig through the snow for a feed. Like most varieties of animals, as their range moves towards the poles, the mass of the animal becomes greater, therefore the wood bison are larger than their prairie cousins with darker fur and a steeper shoulder hump. They, of course, are gregarious creatures, staying together in herds.

I tried to show this intimacy in my painting. The big bulls tolerate cows and young until the males reach the age when they could be seen as potential rivals.