WOODS, WATERS, AND WILDLIFE
Where the
bison roam
Ohio once was home to millions of the iconic beasts; only a few remain. STORY AND PHOTOS BY W.H. “CHIP” GROSS
T
he year 1803 was pivotal in Ohio history. It was a year when what had always been — the frontier — was rapidly passing away, and what would be was now arriving. Ohio became the 17th state of the Union in 1803, an event enthusiastically celebrated by Buckeyes of the time. But another significant event occurred that same year, an event noticed by only a few. It was the year the
10 OHIO COOPERATIVE LIVING • JUNE 2020
last wild bison was shot and killed in Ohio, near the present site of Vesuvius Furnace in Lawrence County, at the southernmost tip of our state. It marked the beginning of the end of the state’s wilderness era, a time that likely will never come again. Other large wild animals living in the state, what present-day wildlife biologists refer to as “charismatic megafauna,” were soon to follow the bison into
