Baby Bison Make Big Arrival in Batavia

BATAVIA, IL—The bison are coming! The bison are coming!

The Fermilab bison family is growing this spring, as between 16 and 18 new baby bison are expected to make their debut at the Batavia research facility.

Bison and particle physics research may not have much in common, but the two have become synonymous throughout the Fox Valley where the herd of 32 bison currently reside.

The season’s first baby bison was born at Fermilab on April 26 of this year, but conservation efforts of these once endangered animals began back in 1969.

The lab’s first director, Robert Wilson, established the herd “as a symbol of the history of the Midwestern prairie, and the laboratory’s pioneering research at the frontiers of particle physics,” Fermilab officials said.

Settled on nearly 1,000 acres of reconstructed tall grass prairie, the environment also contains marshes, forests and remnant oak savannas that help the bison thrive.

It is through conservation efforts like this that the species has been taken off of the endangered species list. Conservation of the bison genome, however, is still a federally recognized priority, according to Fermilab.

In 2016, Fermilab confirmed through genetic testing that the laboratory’s herd shows no evidence of cattle gene mixing. This means that early settlers did not breed the animals with cattle to create a tamer herd. The testing showed that Fermilab’s bison are descendants of the few hundred wild bison that were never crossed with cattle.

To learn more about Fermilab’s bison herd, visit the section on wildlife on the laboratory website.
The entire Fermilab site in Batavia is closed to the general public at this time, so visits to view the bison are not currently possible. Updates will be posted on the Fermilab webpage.