At the End of the Nineteenth Century, American Bison Were

Essay

At the end of the nineteenth century, American bison were bred with domestic cattle in an attempt to rescue their declining populations. The resulting hybrids were bred with true bison. After many generations, animals that look like bison may still contain some ancestral cattle DNA. Ward et al. (Animal Conservation 2: 51-57, 1999) tested current bison herds for a mitochondrial DNA marker specific to cattle. Of the North American bison they tested, 5.2% had the cattle-specific mitochondrial DNA marker. Does this under- or overestimate the number of bison-cattle hybrids? Explain your answer.