WASHINGTON — President Obama signed a law on
Monday making the bison — tens of millions of which once roamed North America —
the country’s first national mammal.
The designation does nothing to threaten the bald
eagle’s position as the national animal. But the eagle is not a mammal. So, at long last, the
nation now has an official one.
The bison’s territory once stretched from the forests
of Alaska to the grasslands of Mexico. The animal remains the largest mammal in
North America, with mature bulls weighing up to a ton. Despite their size, the
animals are surprisingly quick, reaching speeds of up to 35 miles per hour.
They were not fast enough, however, to outrun bullets,
and their extraordinary size and tendency to travel in herds made them easy
targets for hunters during the 19th century. Native American tribes survived on
bison by following herds, and massacres of the animals helped push Indian
cultures into collapse.
The animal’s numbers have fallen to the tens of thousands
in the United States, and many of them are preserved in national parks. Groups
fighting to prevent the extinction of bison had pushed for the federal
designation.
“As a Pennsylvanian, I
kind of thought that we ought to consider the groundhog as a national mammal,”
said Representative Charlie Dent, a Republican. A groundhog from Punxsutawney,
Pa., serves as a national weatherman in an annual rite.
“But I decided I’d better support the bison,” Mr. Dent
added.
The founding fathers debated whether the bald eagle or
wild turkey would better serve as the national symbol, with Benjamin Franklin
rooting for the turkey because the eagle “is a bird of bad moral character.”
Bison served a small role in President Richard M.
Nixon’s diplomatic opening to China. During the secret back-and-forth that
preceded Nixon’s 1972 visit, White House staff members had to come up with a
state gift, and they assumed the Chinese would want a pair of American bison,
said Lucy A. Winchester, the White House social secretary at the time.
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