Banking North American buffalo semen

The purpose of this study was to develop a procedure to collect and preserve semen from wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) and plains bison (Bison bison bison). Semen samples from three wood and three plains bison bulls were collected by electroejaculation from June through October. In addition, sperm was collected from the cauda epididymis of seven plains bison. Semen was cryopreserved using two commercially available cryopreservation media, an egg yolk-based medium (Triladyl), and a medium free of products of animal origin (Andromed). Sperm morphology and motility were recorded on fresh and post-thawed semen samples. Total sperm motility was not different between plains and wood bison for the months of June (50%), July (69%) and October (54%). However, total sperm motility for wood bison was higher (P < 0.05) than plains bison for the months of August and September (August: 80% vs 55%; September: 73% vs 40%). Plains and wood bison did not differ in mean total and mean progressive motility (35 and 15%, respectively) of frozen–thawed sperm samples. The post-thaw motility of Triladyl-treated sperm was higher (P < 0.05) than Andromed-treated sperm (35% vs 13%, respectively). Interestingly, post-thawed epididymal spermatozoa had higher total motility (P < 0.05) than post-thawed electroejaculated sperm when cryopreserved with a medium free of products of animal origin (Andromed; 35% vs 9%, respectively). In conclusion, we used electroejaculation to collect high quality bison semen, and cryopreserved it for future needs.