Has anyone hunted all three bison species? I have a plains bison under my belt but would love to add a wood bison and a Wisent bison. I think they would compilment my plains bison shoulder mount well. The only problem is the wood bison and wisent seem to be a bit more expensive than the plains version.

I am 2/3 there and can say that "a bit more expensive" is probably an understatement. A reasonably priced, high draw odds, free roaming plains bison hunt in Custer State Park is about $5000 now I believe. Wood bison is probably twice that pretty much anywhere. Hunting Wood Bison with Tim Mervyn (www.yukonsheep.com) is the best option for that species. You will pay for it, but his hunts are worth every penny. Similarly, Wisent has probably doubled in price over the last decade which means that you could pay $25,000 for a gold medal bull. Given this, I am always shopping for a free-range cow hunt hoping that one becomes available when my budget allows.

Do you have any pictures of your mounts? I wonder why the wood bison are not thriving as well as the plains bison? I wish they would introduce the wisent bison in the usa and maybe it can thrive like the plains bison did. It just suck how expensive hunting is getting.

I can do some digging for mount photos. I did a shoulder mount on one bull plains bison, a skull mount on a cow plains bison, two head mounts (space shortage!) on wood bison and a skull mount on a third.

Wood bison are actually thriving quite nicely in their wild range. The Yukon herd in particular was planned to be only 500 animals or so. They currently number more than twice that.

There used to be a guy who had Wisent in the US, but do you really want to shoot one of the rarest animals on the planet, and one of the most glamorous European trophies on some 500 acre ranch in Wyoming? No thanks!

Are wood bison and wisent importable to the usa?

Yes to both. I believe Wisent always has been and Wood Bison just became so several months ago when the USFWS (Under pressure from John J. Jackson et al) downlisted them to CITES II. No import permit needed I believe, just a CITES export from Canada.

http://www.huntingreport.com/c...ion_force.cfm?id=282


Wood Bison Cases Still in Court
Written By John J. Jackson III, Conservation Force Chairman & President(posted June 2013)


Although the Canadian wood bison has been downlisted to threatened and is importable without an import permit from the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), two of the original permit cases are still open. It is now 14 years since we began the Wood Bison Initiative.

After the wood bison were downlisted, the defendants, the Department of Interior and USFWS, filed a motion to set aside the case judgment that remanded the permit denials and ordered that the applications be processed properly. They argued that permits were no longer needed, and we opposed with the argument that the permit denials were still illegal acts and should be corrected. The Court agreed with Conservation Force and denied the government’s argument that it should no longer have to act on the Court’s determination that the permit denials were a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. That is where it stands, though now the government has written to the permit applicants asking them to waive their rights to valid permits since they no longer need a permit at all.

Second, the government filed an appeal of the District Court’s decision and order that overturned the permit denials. The appeal was filed long past the deadline, so Conservation Force filed a motion to dismiss the appeal and in due course the government (Department of Justice, which represents the DOI and USFWS in litigation) withdrew its appeal. That is over.

Third, Conservation Force filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for approximately 1,600 pages of documents that were not produced in the Administrative Record during the Wood Bison case. Those were the pages where the senior biologists were persuaded by VIP legal advisors higher in the Department of Interior to change their scientific findings and change their draft approval of the enhancement permits. Although the bison are now downlisted, if the scientific findings were knowingly and deceptively falsified we don’t want it to happen again. We want full disclosure and exposure.

The USFWS did not respond to the FOIA request at all and ultimately had to be sued after multiple notices. Conservation Force v. Ken Salazar, et al. 12-1665 (KBJ). They have stalled as long as they can. Though they have responded they have still withheld 577 pages largely on the basis those pages are protected from disclosure under the attorney work product and attorney-client privileges. We in turn have responded that legal advice to do something fraudulent or deceptive like changing scientific findings to avoid political controversy under false pretenses is a violation of professional conduct, thus not legal or protected communications. Cross motions for summary judgment are pending on that FOIA case as this is written. Meanwhile, it was not necessary to file suit to change the denial of enhancement permit applications of black rhino trophies from Namibia, but the markhor suit challenging the denial of those permits is in rehearing.

My understanding of the above is that Wood Bison are no problem to bring in to the US now. You still need a CITES export permit from Canada but that is it and it will be no problem. However, these two plaintiffs have made a conscious decision to demand their CITES I import permits as requested before under the old system. They are essentially forcing the issue that USFWS does not want forced as evinced by their downlisting of the species. John J. Jackson is, to be frank, the MAN when it comes to taking USFWS to task over illegal delays, bad science, no science, and bad (illegal?) lawyering from their counsel.