The very southern part of the park is predominantly aspen forest with an understorey of elderberry, honeysuckle, rose and other shrubs and openings and meadows of fescue grassland. The fescue grasslands are considered ecologically important because of their rarity; outside the park, most of the native fescue grasslands have been lost to the plough or to urban development. The aspen forest/meadow mosaic in the southwest corner of the park is particularly unique as it sustains a growing herd of more than 400 plains bison, the only free-ranging herd in its original range in Canada that has a full array of native predators, including timber wolves.