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Community Corner

Bison Babes Hot to Trot at Lehigh Valley Zoo

Two fertile females arrived last week at zoo for trysts with a bull named Big Boy.

There are two new girls in town and they are hot to trot. Or so the Lehigh Valley Zoo hopes.

The zoo in North Whitehall and Lowhill townships brought in two fertile female bison last week to join its herd. The staff is hoping to hear the patter of little hooves by next summer.

The newcomers are going through medical tests to make sure they’re healthy and should be introduced to the rest of the herd, including the lucky male, Big Boy, within a week or two, according to Richard Rosevear, the zoo’s curator.

This isn’t some eHarmony love match. Lehigh County, which owns the bison that are cared for by the zoo, decided last spring to reintroduce a breeding program, partly as a way of preserving the legacy of Gen. Harry Trexler, who brought bison to the site a century ago.

Trexler was concerned that the once-prevalent bison were headed for extinction in America. It’s estimated that when Europeans arrived on the continent, there were about 60 million bison, Rosevear said. By the time Trexler, an avid hunter, started the herd on what became the Trexler Game Preserve, the number of bison in the wild had dwindled to 800. In Trexler’s will, he left the herd and the game preserve to the people of Lehigh County.

In recent years at the zoo, the herd’s nine female bison have been on birth control and were unlikely to become fertile, according to Tom Muller, county director of administration.

The county sold two of its three males because the zoo wanted to avoid violent love triangles with multiple males fighting over a hot female.

Muller found someone willing to donate the two new females. Their introduction could shake up the herd dynamics, Rosevear said.

“Every animal in that herd has their own position,” Rosevear said. “(Big Boy) is the most dominant member of the herd. His favorite female has been the second most dominant.”

Members challenge each other to move up in the pecking order. “The most dominant take the best of everything,” Rosevear said. “The best shade spot, the best grass, the best water trough.”

The curator said he’s looking forward to having baby bison in his care. The gestation period for bison is about nine and a half months so it’s possible there could be some next summer.

“I [would] definitely like to see that this herd is being continued,” Rosevear said. “These bison are really a part of our regional heritage.”

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