Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassifying the Wood Bison Under the Endangered Species Act as Threatened Throughout Its Range

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), are reclassifying the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) from endangered to threatened. This action is based on a review of the best available scientific and commercial data, which indicate that the primary threat that led to population decline, unregulated hunting, is no longer a threat and that recovery actions have led to a substantial increase in the number of herds that have a stable or increasing trend in population size. Critical habitat has not been designated because free- ranging wood bison only occur in Canada and we do not designate critical habitat in foreign countries.