Yellowstone and the Smithsonian: Centers of Wildlife Conservation

In the winter of 1996–97, state and federal authorities shot or shipped to slaughter more than 1,100 Yellowstone National Park bison. Since that time, thousands more have been killed or hazed back into the park, as wildlife managers struggle to accommodate an animal that does not recognize man-made borders.

Tensions over the hunting and preservation of the bison, an animal sacred to many Native Americans and an icon of the American West, are at least as old as the nation’s first national par...