The effort to grow the bison population on the Illinois prairie is apparently meeting with some early success. Fourteen bison calves were born this spring in the Nachusa Grasslands, a 35-hundred-acre preserve in Franklin Grove.
The calves are the offspring of bison trucked into Illinois last October from Iowa under a reintroduction program funded with donations from the public.
The newborns increased the size of the herd to 44 and has also saw a rise in visitors and requests for individual and group tours.
