where are brown bears found in the us
Brown bear The brown bear has lost 98% of its habitat in the lower 48 states. About 95% of the brown bear population in the United States is in Alaska, though in the lower 48 states, they are repopulating gradually but steadily along the Rockies and the western Great Plains.[144][145] The Alaskan population is estimated at 32,000 individuals.[146] The largest populations of brown bears in the lower 48 states are found in the 23,300-km2 Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the 24,800-km2 Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.[147] The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of northwest Wyoming is estimated to hold about 674–839 grizzly bears, followed slightly the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem of northwest Montana with about 765 animals, the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem of northwest Montana and northeast Idaho with about 42-65 bears of the species, the Selkirk Ecosystem of northeast Washington and northwest Idaho with only about 40–50 animals and even less the North Cascades Ecosystem of northcentral Washington with about 5–10 grizzlies.[148][149][150][151] These five ecosystems combine for a total of a maximum 1,729 wild grizzlies still persisting in the contiguous United States. Unfortunately, these populations are isolated from each other, inhibiting any genetic flow between ecosystems and creating low genetic diversity in remaining populations which can have negative long-time effects.[147][152] This isolation poses one of the greatest threats to the future survival of the grizzly bear in the contiguous United States.[147] Although there is no record of their existence in the United States east of the Rocky Mountain and Great Plain regions in human history, fossil records from Kentucky and the Ungava Peninsula do in fact show that grizzly bears once roamed in eastern North America.[153]
American bison The American bison or simply bison (Bison bison), also commonly known as the American buffalo or simply buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in vast herds. They became nearly extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle, but have made a recent resurgence largely restricted to a few national parks and reserves. Their historical range roughly comprised a triangle between the Great Bear Lake in Canada's far northwest, south to the Mexican states of Durango and Nuevo León, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States (nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas) from New York to Georgia and per some sources down to Florida. Bison were seen in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.[2][3][4]