The research, led by the Wildlife Conservation Society and similar organizations, contemplates bison roaming large tracts of land from Alaska to Mexico during the next 100 years. The plan hinges on a series of conservation and restoration measures to provide large, unfettered landscapes such as grasslands and prairies in the southwestern U.S., Arctic lowland taiga in Alaska and large swaths of mountain forests and grasslands across Canada and the United States. Even parts of the Mexican desert might also support herds that once lived there, officials said.

"The bison is one of the great living symbols of North America," said the study's lead author, Eric Sanderson of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "This assessment shows us what is possible; that with hard work and ambitious goals, we can restore this iconic species to a surprising amount of its former range over the next century."

Bison once numbered in the tens of millions, but were decimated by commercial hunting and habitat loss, he said. By 1889 fewer than 1,100 animals survived.

The plan appears in the journal Conservation Biology.