GPS year tag helps track the bison in Sansk. Buffalo Pound Provincial Park
More than a dozen bison is now being tracked electronically in 100 hectares of Rolling Hills at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park in Susketewan.
Park employees have attached ear tags with GPS capabilities for 14 animals in the park, over 50 kilometers west of Regina.
The solar-operated tags transmit a signal to the passing tower nearby, which then gives a real-time space of the bison to the computer program back to the park’s visitor center every 15 minutes.
People visiting the center can see the bison space on the dashboard displayed on the TV screen.
Park manager Dave Budhnson said that Buffalo Pound Suskechewan has the only provincial park with bison, which has been there since 1972. The tag was first used in October 2024.
“The centuries -old question has always been from our visitors: ‘Where are buffaloes?” “There is often disappointment, you drive there all the way, reach the lookout point and they cannot see Buffalo.”
Bison appears as a similar name on a satellite view of small white dots and padocks on the TV screen.
Tags used for research
A meadow ecology with Suskechewan Parks, Dell Gross, said GPS tag will help them do research on the grazing pattern of the bison and how they interact with their environment.
An important part of the research of gross focuses on how the bison grazed and how it affects what they eat.
“So if we burn a small, determined burn in the bison padock, then the grass that grows more delicious, more nutritious, and the bison looks out to meet his dietary needs,” he said.
Sakal used GPS data to move around salt and water for the bison so that they could not hold the same area repeatedly, which will also help to grow healthy grass back.
Their findings can also be applied to the fields along with cattle, which can help animals to eat healthy fodder.
Gross stated that bison is important for grasslands of appreciation ecology.
He said, “Why do they have a conversation with grasslands in thousands of years that our soil is so fertile for growing annual crops.”
“Insects, we have pollinators … a lot of them can be traced back to the bison. That is why they were very important for the existence of indigenous people here very earlier and were doing us together.”
Bjarnason said that the GPS interface is also available on an app, which can currently be seen only by the park staff. Plans are working to make the app public in future.
They hope that groups like schools, then can come to the park to use the app as an educational equipment.
“This is always a informative experience to see (bison),” said Budarnson. “We want to increase the opportunity to see animals, which will then increase interest in understanding them.”
