At the turn of the century, due to market hunting and the attempt to strip the native plains population of self-reliance, the American Bison had been reduced from approximately 60 - 100 million to less than 600 animals. President Roosevelt helped found the American Bison Society in 1905 and as President, Roosevelt established numerous national parks, forests, and monuments, including the National Bison Range in Montana. Many tribes, parks, and ranches have been established and there is a population now, wild and captive of approximately three quarter of a million animals.

The American Pronghorn population reached its lowest point in the early 1900s, when numbers dwindled to an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 individuals. There were only a hundred animals in Oregon at this time. This represented a massive decline from the tens of millions of pronghorn that once roamed North America. Key factors that led to the historical population crash include:

• Overhunting: Market, subsistence, and sport hunting pushed the species to the brink of extinction.

• Habitat loss: Settlers converted native prairie and grassland habitats for agricultural production.

• Habitat fragmentation: The construction of roads, fences, and railroad tracks disrupted ancient migration corridors, which are vital for pronghorn survival.

• Recovery and modern challenges

• Following the early 20th-century low conservation efforts and hunting regulations allowed the pronghorn population to rebound significantly. However, while the overall population is now considered stable, modern challenges threaten specific subspecies and local herds.

• Regional declines: Recent studies show that productivity has declined in many herds in Wyoming due to habitat fragmentation from oil and gas development, invasive trees, and climate change.

• Endangered subspecies: The Sonoran pronghorn, which lives in the arid Southwest, is an endangered subspecies with a very small population. It faces ongoing threats from drought and human development.

• New energy projects: Renewable energy projects, such as large solar and wind farms, are also now fragmenting pronghorn habitats and blocking migration routes.

Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, east of Klamath Falls, was established on December 20th, 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to serve “…as a range and breeding ground for the antelope and other species of wildlife…”. Much of the conservation efforts was led by the first Roosevelt, a Republican and a hunter. This effort was led by his fifth cousin and a Democrat. Which shows that conservation is not a partisan cause. And Pronghorn is the proper designation because they are not properly an antelope but an ancient North American ungulate that they are now the only existing representative form.

Elk populations dramatically declined in the 1800s due to unregulated hunting, habitat destruction from westward expansion and logging, and competition from domestic livestock. In 1800, there may have been 10 million elk in the US. Near Extirpation, by the early 1900s, populations in the US were reduced to less than 100,000, with the Eastern elk subspecies even going extinct. In 1900, there were only hundreds of elk remaining in Oregon. Today there are between 1.1 and 1.5 million elk in the US. There are approximately 133,000 in Oregon. Oregon actually had to relocate elk by train from Wyoming to the Wallowa Lake area in the early 1900s several times because all of the Rocky Mountain Subspecies had been extirpated in the region. The Nature Conservancy has a very large reserve now north of Enterprise Oregon that between 5-7,000 Elk summer and winter.