American bison
You may be familiar with the famous, tragic photo of bison skulls piled up in the late 1870s. At one point, there were fewer than 1,000 of these bovids—the largest terrestrial mammals in North America—left on the continent. They were overhunted wholesale, including by the U.S. government, which killed the animals to hurt Native American populations that relied on the animals for their livelihoods.
Bison have bounced back considerably since, with conservation herds numbering around 30,000, according to the Smithsonian Institute.
