tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/bison-25125/articlesBison – The Conversation2023-12-27T09:09:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199892023-12-27T09:09:09Z2023-12-27T09:09:09ZWhich zoo animals are most active in winter and what times are best to see them?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566032/original/file-20231215-15-11mkge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C67%2C4970%2C3261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amur tigers are evolved for winter weather</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/snowflakes-wild-cat-tiger-winter-nature-1231255066">Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The temperature has dropped, the nights have drawn in. The winter holidays have started, families are gathered – so where can you go to fuel the imagination and get some fresh air? A zoo might not be your first thought – but with some offering reduced ticket prices and smaller crowds than in summer, your nearest zoo on a cold, crisp winter’s day might be just the place.</p>
<p>We might think that their most popular animals, large mammals, are only active in summer, because that time of year suits us better. However, not all animals love sunshine and the hot days of summer. Some prefer cooler weather and are more active in colder temperatures. Here are ten animals to look out for on a winter visit to the zoo:</p>
<h2>1. Amur tiger</h2>
<p>In the wild, Amur tigers live in northern China and Russia so are used to the cold, making them more active during our winter months. These endangered animals are crepuscular (<a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jzo.12622?casa_token=TyJcM9gUMaMAAAAA%3AoVnzcHYYTEod9Eg8s_eQgr8XANC9hekc7rGkYultZ3ecCqRzAU469_oW_j5vaDEQeqqhyzBel4FY0mQ">active at dawn and dusk</a>), so I would head over to see them towards the end of your day at the zoo. There are currently 40 Amur tigers living in 17 UK zoos.</p>
<h2>2. Grey wolf</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/3746/247624660">Native to</a> Eurasia, the US, Canada and Greenland, the grey wolf lives in many different habitats, including places where temperatures drop as low as -40°C. Grey wolves can communicate across up to ten miles using <a href="https://y86aca.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Spontaneoushowling.pdf">individually recognisable howls</a>. They also howl during the breeding season (February-March), so you might be lucky and hear them in the zoo during late winter or early spring.</p>
<h2>3. Bison</h2>
<p>In the wild, bison live in <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2814/45156279">northern Europe and Russia</a> as well as in the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2815/123789863">US and Canada</a>, so they cope well in UK winters. These animals <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-003-0599-y">will be foraging</a> for most of the day, and are likely to be out in all weathers.</p>
<h2>4. Red panda</h2>
<p>Wild red pandas live in the forests of the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/714/110023718">Himalayas and China</a>, between 2,500m and 4,800m above sea level. These endangered animals will be active around feeding time – check the zoo’s schedule so you can time your visit to watch them climb down from their treetop snooze spot.</p>
<h2>5. Red squirrel</h2>
<p>Native to the UK, these cute mammals are already used to British winter conditions. There are still places where you can see them in the wild, such as the Isle of Wight and Scottish woodlands. But their numbers have <a href="https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/43424/1/1450935_Fingland.pdf">been in decline</a> since grey squirrels from the US were introduced in the 19th century. Some zoos in the UK are part of a <a href="https://www.dudleyzoo.org.uk/red-squirrel-success/">captive breeding</a> and release programme, working to restore their numbers in the wild.</p>
<h2>6. Polar bear</h2>
<p>It won’t come as a surprise that this much-loved winter animal is on our list – and you should see playful polar bears swimming and splashing around in their pools a lot more in winter. Four UK zoos house them: Peak Wildlife Park near Stoke-on-Trent, Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, Highland Wildlife Park in Cairngorms National Park, and Jimmy’s Farm & Wildlife Park in Ipswich.</p>
<h2>7. Snow leopard</h2>
<p>The name gives this one away as another big cat that likes the cold. Snow leopards live in the rugged mountains of central Asia. They are <a href="https://snowleopardconservancy.org/pdf/Jackson%20PhD%20thesis%20+%20photo.pdf">quite elusive</a> so spotting them, even in zoos in the winter, may be a challenge. However, if you aim for late afternoon, you’re more likely to be rewarded.</p>
<h2>8. Penguin</h2>
<p>A lot of penguins found in UK zoos are not from the freezing Antarctic. African and Humboldt penguins, for example, are from much warmer regions of the southern hemisphere. But that doesn’t stop them wanting to engage with zoo visitors through the windows while swimming in winter – just like those from colder climates, such as the gentoo penguins shown here at Belfast Zoo.</p>
<h2>9. Reindeer</h2>
<p>The reindeer you see at the zoo may be getting some rest before they make their estimated <a href="https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/christmas/santas-reindeer-would-have-to-travel-a-distance-of-over-41-million-miles-to-deliver-presents-238014">31-hour journey of 41 million miles</a> to deliver all the presents on Christmas Eve. Males shed their antlers in autumn and winter, while females keep theirs until spring – meaning that Santa’s sleigh is probably pulled by female reindeer.</p>
<h2>10. Reptile house (to defrost)</h2>
<p>There is nothing better than a reptile house or aquarium to help you defrost after being outside. The animals housed here need warm conditions to survive, so the whole area normally feels warm. They will also be more peaceful places given the lower zoo visitor numbers at this time of year, so you can take your time looking at these fascinating animals.</p>
<p>You may be wondering how animals from warmer climates cope with British winters. Zoos should always be conscious of animal welfare and this includes providing heated indoor areas. The best way for zoos to maintain high animal welfare is to let the animals decide where they want to go. Inside with protection from the weather, or outside in the fresh cold air – the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/6/318">choice should be theirs</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Not all animals retreat to their shelters in cold weather.Samantha Ward, Associate Professor of Zoo Animal Welfare, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112522023-10-06T13:06:23Z2023-10-06T13:06:23ZBison are sacred to Native Americans − but each tribe has its own special relationship to them<p>The American bison, or American buffalo as they are commonly called, were once close to extinction. Their numbers dropped from <a href="https://www.nps.gov/gosp/learn/nature/where-the-buffalo-roamed.htm">30-60 million</a> to around 500 because of overhunting in the 19th century.</p>
<p>But they made an unlikely comeback and continue to captivate people. At Yellowstone National Park – home to the largest bison herd in the U.S., with almost 6,000 head of wild bison – they are a major attraction for visitors. In 2023 the park attracted <a href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/management/delivering-a-world-class-visitor-experience.htm">more than 3 million people</a>.</p>
<p>Conservationists and Indigenous people successfully saved the American bison from complete annihilation in the 20th century, increasing their numbers from less than 500 to <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/president-bidens-investing-america-agenda-help-restore-bison-populations-and-grassland">more than 15,000 wild bison</a>, which does not include the thousands of bison living on ranches. The U.S. even designated it as the “<a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/15-facts-about-our-national-mammal-american-bison">national mammal</a>” in 2016. </p>
<p>Over thousands of years and across diverse landscapes, Indigenous peoples developed traditional ecological knowledge about the bison and their ecosystems. Meanwhile, they also developed religious customs and sacred places important to their relationship with bison. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.rosalynlapier.com/">Indigenous scholar</a> and an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe and Métis, I am interested in how Native Americans understand the natural world. <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496201508/">I learned from my Blackfeet grandparents</a> that bison emerged from the supernatural underwater realm and were given to humans by the Divine to use as food and as material. In return, humans are to respect and revere the bison.</p>
<h2>Thousands of years of history</h2>
<p>The modern-day American bison evolved around 10,000 years ago during the end of the Pleistocene Epoch from an ancient bison species. Over these several thousand years, according to environmental historian <a href="https://www.umt.edu/history/people/emeriti-faculty.php?ID=628">Dan Flores</a>, <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324006169">Indigenous peoples and bison “co-evolved”</a> – meaning they influenced the others’ actions and behaviors. </p>
<p>Indigenous peoples used bison meat and fat for food; hides for clothing, footwear and covering for their lodges; bones for tools; and other parts of the bison for rope, thread, glue or dyes. Along with the longtime use of bison for practical purposes, religious rituals and ceremonies also emerged. </p>
<p>Environmental historian <a href="https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/rmorriss">Robert Morrissey</a> writes in “<a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295750880/people-of-the-ecotone/">People of the Ecotone</a>” that Indigenous peoples in what is now Illinois ritualized running, a skill necessary for hunting bison. They developed coming-of-age ceremonies that tested the ability of young people to run long distances, as well as fast, to prepare for bison hunting. </p>
<p>Indigenous peoples in what is now Alberta, Canada, constructed shrines out of rocks to offer prayers to divine entities <a href="https://www.aupress.ca/books/120137-imagining-head-smashed-in/">connected to bison hunting</a>. They left offerings of tobacco or other items at these shrines during their seasonal hunts. Some of these rock shrines still exist and are viewed as sacred places.</p>
<h2>Bison origins and sacred places</h2>
<p>Indigenous people continued to remember and revere bison in rituals and ceremonies. Every tribe on the Great Plains has its own “deep individual <a href="https://www.charkoosta.com/news/the-american-buffalo-reviews-history-renews-hope/article_0cdf03c8-0b9d-11ee-9fe1-3b4276296e25.html">connection to bison</a>,” says Whisper Camel-Means, a Salish-Kootenai tribal member and wildlife biologist working at the <a href="https://bisonrange.org/">tribe’s bison range</a>. “We are all connected, but we all have a different relationship. Native people are not all the same.”</p>
<p>The Blackfeet believe that certain <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-native-americans-a-river-is-more-than-a-person-it-is-also-a-sacred-place-85302">lakes and rivers are sacred areas</a> because they are the home of the Suyiitapi, the supernatural underwater persons, and the place where bison emerged from underneath the water. </p>
<p>The Lakota, similar to the Blackfeet, consider bison sacred and a gift from the Divine. For the Lakota, however, bison did not come out of water, they came from inside the earth.</p>
<p>According to anthropologist <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/alber033">Patricia Albers</a>, the Lakota believe that both bison and humans emerged <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/natlpark/158/">onto the Great Plains</a> from what is now <a href="https://www.nps.gov/wica/index.htm">Wind Cave National Park</a> in the Black Hills in South Dakota.</p>
<p>The Lakota believe this landscape to be their “most sacred and culturally significant” area because it is a place of genesis for humans and bison. </p>
<p>Gerard Baker, an elder from the Mandan-Hidatsa tribes, shared in a <a href="https://kenburns.com/films/the-american-buffalo/">new PBS documentary film</a> on the American bison, “When you look at a buffalo you just don’t see a big shaggy beast. You see life, you see existence, you see hope. Those are our relatives. They are a part of us.” </p>
<h2>New efforts to revive the bison</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A few bison Bison graze near a stream." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552367/original/file-20231005-23-4oag72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bison are a major attraction for visitors at Yellowstone National Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/YellowstoneBisonEncounters/ab14e1b88dc140ce94e260a6f2f1f5af/photo?Query=bison%20yellowstone%20park&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=448&currentItemNo=16&vs=true">AP Photo/Robert Graves, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year, the U.S. federal government <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-announces-significant-action-restore-bison-populations-part-new">added US$25 million</a> to “restore wild and healthy populations” of American bison on federal lands and $5 million toward accomplishing the same goal on <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/president-bidens-investing-america-agenda-help-restore-bison-populations-and-grassland">tribal lands</a>. And new legislation this fall seeks to further “<a href="https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/indian_buffalo_management_act_bill_text.pdf">develop the capacity of tribes</a>” to manage bison and bison habitat.</p>
<p>“The restoration of buffalo back to our tribes and communities and reservations is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/us/native-american-tribes-bison.html">part of our healing</a>,” Jason Baldes, a member of the Eastern Shoshone from Wyoming, and the tribal buffalo coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation, told The New York Times, emphasizing why this kind of funding is necessary. </p>
<p>As more bison are returned to tribal communities, I believe, as my grandparents did, that bison are a gift from the Divine. It is a reminder also of how Native peoples relate to and understand the natural world and its deep religious meaning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier served as an advisor and was interviewed for the PBS documentary film "The American Buffalo". </span></em></p>Efforts are being made to develop the capacity of Native tribes to manage bison and bison habitats. An Indigenous scholar explains their sacred significance.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055562023-06-14T12:35:28Z2023-06-14T12:35:28ZForensic evidence suggests Paleo-Americans hunted mastodons, mammoths and other megafauna in eastern North America 13,000 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528316/original/file-20230525-21-no8djo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=556%2C160%2C3570%2C2456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Animals that shared the landscape with humans disappeared as the ice age ended.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_age_fauna_of_northern_Spain_-_Mauricio_Antón.jpg">Mauricio Antón/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The earliest people who lived in North America shared the landscape with huge animals. On any day these hunter-gatherers might encounter a giant, snarling saber-toothed cat ready to pounce, or a group of elephantlike mammoths stripping tree branches. Maybe a herd of giant bison would stampede past.</p>
<p>Obviously, you can’t see any of these ice age megafauna now. They’ve all been extinct for about 12,800 years. Mammoths, mastodons, huge bison, horses, camels, very large ground sloths and giant short-faced bears all died out as the huge continental ice sheets disappeared at the end of the ice age. What happened to them?</p>
<p>Scientists have pointed to various potential causes for the extinctions. Some suggest <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21201-8">environmental changes happened faster</a> than the animals could adapt to them. Others posit a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0706977104">catastrophic impact of a fragmented comet</a>. Maybe it was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0501947102">overhunting on the part of humans</a>, or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415">some combination of all these factors</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/sc_institute_archeology_and_anthropology/faculty-staff/moore_christopher.php">One of my major interests as an archaeologist</a> has been to understand how the earliest Paleo-Americans lived and interacted with megafauna species. Just how implicated should humans be in the extinction of these ice age animals? In a new study, my colleagues and I used a forensic technique more commonly used to identify blood on objects at crime scenes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36617-z">to investigate this question</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Artist's rendition of Paleoamerican Clovis encampment with people sitting around campfire under night sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528320/original/file-20230525-19-5p0no3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clovis hunter-gatherers lived in small, mobile groups, likely following animal migrations over long distances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Pate/Southeast Archeological Center, National Park Service</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Testing stone tools like murder weapons</h2>
<p>Archaeologists have uncovered a sparse scattering of stone tools left at the campsites of Paleo-American Clovis hunter-gatherers who lived around the time of the megafauna extinctions. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="line drawing of two stone points" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531835/original/file-20230614-25-wuuy96.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early Paleo-American Clovis points (left) and Middle Paleo-American redstone points (right) have a distinct fluted shape, highlighted in yellow, likely designed to facilitate hafting onto a spear or knife handle for use in hunting and butchery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darby Erd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These include iconic <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clovis-complex">Clovis spearpoints</a> with their distinctive flutes – concave areas left behind by removed stone flakes that extend from the base to the middle of the point. People most likely made the points this way so they could easily affix them to a spear shaft.</p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/02/an-afternoon-walk-and-a-mammoth-find-second-clovis-people-kill-site-found-in-new-mexico/109750">sites excavated in the western United States</a>, archaeologists know Paleo-American Clovis hunter-gatherers who lived around the time of the extinctions at least occasionally killed or scavenged ice age megafauna such as mammoths. There they’ve found preserved bones of megafauna together with the stone tools used for killing and butchering these animals. These sites are crucial for understanding the possible role that early Paleo-Americans played in the extinction event.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many areas in the Southeastern United States lack sites with preserved bone and associated stone tools that might indicate whether megafauna were hunted there by Clovis or other Paleo-American cultures. Without evidence of preserved bones of megafauna, archaeologists have to find other ways to examine this question.</p>
<p>Forensic scientists have used an <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/use-crossover-immunoelectrophoresis-detect-human-blood-protein-soil">immunological blood residue analysis</a> technique called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0379-0738(78)90025-7">immunoelectrophoresis</a> for over 50 years to identify blood residue sticking to objects found at crime scenes. In recent years, researchers have applied this method to identify <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103785">animal blood proteins preserved within ancient stone tools</a>. They compare aspects of the ancient blood with blood antigens derived from modern relatives of extinct animals.</p>
<p>Residue analysis does not rely on the presence of nuclear DNA, but rather on preserved, identifiable proteins that sometimes survive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.2000.0628">within the microscopic fractures and flaws of stone tools</a> created during their manufacture and use. Typically, only a small percentage of artifacts produce <a href="https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng/services/services-libraries/theses/Pages/item.aspx?idNumber=27681369">positive blood residue results</a>, indicating a match between the ancient residue and antiserum molecules from modern animals.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/aikenstandard/news/a-lot-of-unknowns/article_95d93585-8455-5af6-b9e1-536b629f49ee.html">A previous blood residue study</a> of a small number of Paleo-American artifacts in South Carolina and Georgia failed to provide evidence that these people had hunted or scavenged extinct megafauna. The researchers found evidence of bison and other animals such as deer, bear and rabbit, but no evidence of Proboscidean (mammoth or mastodon) or of an extinct species of North American horse.</p>
<h2>Identifying ancient prey of human hunters</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I realized we needed a much larger sample of Paleo-American stone tools for testing. Since Clovis points and other Paleo-American artifacts are rare, I relied heavily on local museums, private collectors, collections housed at state universities and even military installations to amass a sample of 120 Paleo-American stone tools from all over North Carolina and South Carolina.</p>
<p>Because these artifacts are irreplaceable, I personally carried all 120 Clovis spearpoints and tools inside a protective case on a flight from South Carolina to the blood residue lab in Portland, Oregon. I coordinated in advance with the Transportation Security Administration so my collection of 13,000-year-old weaponry would make it through the screening process.</p>
<p>The blood residue analysis provided unambiguous proof that the tools had had contact with ancient animal blood proteins. The results included the first direct evidence on ancient stone tools of the blood of extinct mammoth or mastodon (Proboscidean) and the extinct North American horse (Equidae) on Paleo-American artifacts in eastern North America. This evidence is significant because it proves that these animals were present in the Carolinas, and they were hunted or scavenged by early Paleo-Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="artist's rendition of prehistoric people hitting a mastodon with spears" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528323/original/file-20230525-23-9vbnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It likely would have taken a group of hunters to take down a mastodon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/Mastodon%20Hunt%201.htm">Ed Jackson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition to Proboscidean and horse, bison (Bovidae) blood residues were most common, adding to earlier blood residue research <a href="https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.81.1.132">suggesting a focus on bison hunting</a> by Clovis and other Paleo-American cultures. Bison in North America did not go extinct but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_antiquus">instead became smaller</a>, most likely as a result of climate change as the last ice age ended and the climate warmed.</p>
<p>So, what do these results suggest for the extinction debate? While this study does not prove humans were responsible for the extinctions, it does show that early Paleo-Americans across the continent likely hunted or scavenged these animals, at least occasionally. The results also indicate that Proboscideans and horses were around when Clovis people were here – only a few hundred years before their eventual extinction in North America.</p>
<p>Another interesting finding is that while Proboscidean blood residues are found on Clovis artifacts, blood residues for horses (Equidae) are found on both Clovis and Paleo-American points that are slightly more recent younger than Clovis. This may suggest the extinction of Proboscidean was complete in the Carolinas by the end of the Clovis period, and the extinction of ice age horse species took longer.</p>
<p>Testing an even larger sample of Paleo-American stone tools from different regions of North America could help pin down the timing and geographic variability in the extinction of megafauna species and provide more clues about why these animals disappeared when they did.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher R. Moore is affiliated with the the non-profit Comet Research Group (CRG).</span></em></p>A forensic technique more often used at modern crime scenes identified blood residue from large extinct animals on spearpoints and stone tools used by people who lived in the Carolinas millennia ago.Christopher R. Moore, Research Professor and Director of the Southeastern Paleoamerican Survey (SEPAS) at the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018482023-04-26T12:27:50Z2023-04-26T12:27:50ZIn protecting land for wildlife, size matters – here’s what it takes to conserve very large areas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522457/original/file-20230424-28-en5ie0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C14%2C4940%2C3308&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bison herd on the America Prairie reserve in Montana.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/bison-herd-on-the-american-prairie-reserve-roams-at-sunset-news-photo/1404493432">Amy Toensing/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Driving north on state Highway 66 through the <a href="https://ftbelknap.org/">Fort Belknap Indian Reservation</a> in central Montana, it’s easy to miss a small herd of bison lounging just off the road behind an 8-foot fence. Each winter, heavy snows drive bison out of Wyoming’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/bisonfaq.htm">Yellowstone National Park</a> – the only place in the U.S. where they have lived continuously since prehistoric times – and into Montana, where they are either killed or shipped off to tribal lands to avoid conflict with cattle ranchers. </p>
<p>In the winter of 2022-2023 alone, over 1,500 bison have been “removed,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/science/bison-hunt-yellowstone-native-americans.html">about 25% of Yellowstone’s entire population</a>. The bison at Fort Belknap are refugees that have been trucked 300 miles to the reservation from past Yellowstone winter culls.</p>
<p>Although bison are the <a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/15-facts-about-our-national-mammal-american-bison">U.S. national mammal</a>, they exist in small and fragmented populations across the West. The federal government is working to restore healthy wild bison populations, relying heavily on <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-announces-significant-action-restore-bison-populations-part-new">sovereign tribal lands</a> to house them. </p>
<p>Indeed, tribal lands are the great wildlife refuges of the prairie. Fort Belknap is the only place in Montana where bison, critically endangered <a href="https://www.fws.gov/species/black-footed-ferret-mustela-nigripes">black-footed ferrets</a> and swift foxes, which occupy <a href="https://apnews.com/article/canada-montana-climate-and-environment-96dbd037644d8c35066ca84721d0afdc">about 40% of their historic range</a>, all have been restored.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black-footed ferret looks out of a burrow." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522814/original/file-20230425-3183-b7r83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black-footed ferrets, which once ranged across the Great Plains, are one of the most endangered species in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/8Zsu7o">J. Michael Lockhart, USFWS/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Indigenous communities can’t and shouldn’t be solely responsible for restoring wildlife. As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CjwvzoIAAAAJ&hl=en">ecologist who studies prairie ecosystems</a>, I believe that conserving grassland wildlife in the U.S. Great Plains and elsewhere will require public and private organizations to work together to create new, larger protected areas where these species can roam.</p>
<h2>Rethinking how protected areas are made</h2>
<p>At a global scale, conservationists have done a remarkable job of conserving land, creating <a href="https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/thematic-areas/wdpa?tab=WDPA">over 6,000 terrestrial protected areas per year</a> over the past decade. But small has become the norm. The average size of newly created protected areas over that time frame is 23 square miles (60 square kilometers), down from 119 square miles (308 square kilometers) during the 1970s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing number and average size of new protected areas from 1900-2020" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521154/original/file-20230416-24-rbuo27.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From the 1970s through 2020, the annual rate of protected area creation on land (solid purple bars) increased, but these areas’ average size (hollow bars) decreased.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.protectedplanet.net/en">David Jachowski/Data from Protected Planet</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creating large new protected areas is hard. As the human population grows, fewer and fewer places are available to be set aside for conservation. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2485">conserving large areas is important</a> because it makes it possible to restore critical ecological processes like migration and to sustain populations of endangered wildlife like bison that need room to roam.</p>
<p>Creating an extensive protected area in the Great Plains is particularly difficult because this area was <a href="https://theconversation.com/animals-large-and-small-once-covered-north-americas-prairies-and-in-some-places-they-could-again-126989">largely passed over</a> when the U.S. national park system was created. But it’s becoming clear that it is possible to create large protected areas through nontraditional methods.</p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://americanprairie.org/">American Prairie</a>, a nonprofit that is working to stitch together public and tribal lands to create a Connecticut-sized protected area for grassland wildlife in Montana. Since 2004, American Prairie has made 37 land purchases and amassed a habitat base of 460,000 acres (about 720 square miles, or 1,865 square kilometers). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kas2WEMyino?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The American Prairie initiative is working to create a protected zone of prairie grassland the size of Connecticut by knitting together public and private lands where ranchers and others are still working.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, in Australia, nonprofits are making <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-major-players-in-conservation-ngos-thrive-while-national-parks-struggle-199880">staggering progress in conserving land</a> while government agencies struggle with funding cuts and bureaucratic hurdles. Today, Australia is second only to the U.S. in its amount of land managed privately for conservation.</p>
<h2>Big ideas make room for smaller actions</h2>
<p>Having worked to conserve wildlife in this region for over 20 years, I have seen firsthand that by setting a sweeping goal of connecting 3.2 million acres (5,000 square miles, or 13,000 square kilometers), American Prairie has reframed the scale at which conservation success is measured in the Great Plains. By raising the bar for land protection, they have made other conservation organizations seem more moderate and created new opportunities for those groups.</p>
<p>One leading beneficiary is <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/">The Nature Conservancy</a>, which <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/northern-great-plains/">owns the 60,000-acre Matador Ranch</a> within the American Prairie focal area. When the conservancy first purchased the property, local ranchers were skeptical. But that skepticism has turned to support because the conservancy isn’t trying to create a protected area. </p>
<p>Instead, it uses the ranch as a <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/matador-ranch/">grassbank</a> – a place where ranchers can graze cattle at a low cost, and in return, pledge to follow wildlife-friendly practices on their own land, such as altering fences to allow migratory pronghorn to slip underneath. Via the grassbank, ranchers are now using these wildlife conservation techniques on an <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/northern-great-plains/">additional 240,000 acres</a> of private property. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XyvfiNDtiAI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Using smooth wire instead of barbed wire for prairie fences enables pronghorn to cross under them with less chance of injury.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other moderate conservation organizations are also working with ranchers. For example, this year the Bezos Earth Fund has contributed heavily to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s annual grants program, helping to make a record <a href="https://www.nfwf.org/programs/northern-great-plains-program/northern-great-plains-2023-request-proposals">$US16 million</a> available to reward ranchers for taking wildlife-friendly actions. </p>
<p>A collective model for achieving a large-scale protected area in the region has taken shape. American Prairie provides the vision and acts to link large tracts of protected land for restoring wildlife. Other organizations work with surrounding landowners to increase tolerance toward wildlife so those animals can move about more freely. </p>
<p>Instead of aiming to create a single polygon of protected land on a map, this new approach seeks to assemble a large protected area with diverse owners who all benefit from participating. Rather than excluding people, it integrates local communities to achieve large-scale conservation.</p>
<h2>A global pathway to 30x30</h2>
<p>This Montana example is not unique. In a recent study, colleagues and I found that when conservationists propose creating very large protected areas, they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14080">transform conservation discussions</a> and draw in other organizations that together can achieve big results. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CrL2AL2Lgt6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Many recent successes started with a single actor leading the charge. Perhaps the most notable example is the recently created <a href="https://www.maraemoana.gov.ck/#henry-puna">Cook Islands Marine Park</a>, also known as Marae Moana, which covers 735,000 square miles (1.9 million square kilometers) in the South Pacific. The reserve’s origin can be traced back to <a href="https://psmag.com/news/cook-islands-the-tiny-island-nation-developing-a-huge-new-marine-park">Kevin Iro</a>, an outspoken former professional rugby player and member of the islands’ tourism board. </p>
<p>While some individual conservation organizations have found that this strategy works, global, national and local policymakers are not setting comparable large-scale targets as they discuss how to meet an ambitious worldwide goal of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/goal-conserve-30-percent-planet-2030-biodiversity-climate">protecting 30% of the planet for wildlife by 2030</a>. The 30x30 target was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/climate/biodiversity-cop15-montreal-30x30.html">adopted by 190 countries</a> at an international conference in 2022 on saving biodiversity.</p>
<p>Critics argue that large protected areas are too complicated to create and too expensive to maintain, or that they exclude local communities. However, new models show that there is a sustainable and inclusive way to move forward. </p>
<p>In my view, 30x30 policymakers should act boldly and include large protected area targets in current policies. Past experience shows that failing to do so will mean that future protected areas <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-amazon-land-grab-how-brazils-government-is-clearing-the-way-for-deforestation-173416">become smaller and smaller</a> and ultimately fail to address Earth’s biodiversity crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Jachowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Governments and wildlife advocates are working to protect 30% of Earth’s lands and waters for nature by 2030. An ecologist explains why creating large protected areas should be a top priority.David Jachowski, Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Clemson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1844112022-06-06T12:51:28Z2022-06-06T12:51:28ZMaking room for wildlife: 4 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467000/original/file-20220603-38455-brs9v3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3210%2C2376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Photographing a bear in Yellowstone National Park at a distance the National Park Service calls safe – at least 100 yards from a predator.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/D9s93c">Jim Peaco, NPS/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Millions of Americans enjoy observing and photographing wildlife near their homes or on trips. But when people get too close to wild animals, they risk <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1102400431/yellowstone-bison-woman-gored">serious injury</a> or even <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/bison-bellows-7-21-16.htm">death</a>. It happens regularly, despite the threat of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/10/1044918852/yellowstone-national-park-service-grizzly-bears">jail time and thousands of dollars in fines</a>. </p>
<p>These four articles from The Conversation’s archive offer insights into how wild animals view humans and how our presence affects nearby animals and birds – plus a scientist’s perspective on what’s wrong with wildlife selfies. </p>
<h2>1. They’re just not that into you</h2>
<p>In some parts of North America, wild animals that once were hunted to near-extinction have rebounded in recent decades. Wild turkeys, white-tailed deer, beavers and black bears are examples of wild species that have returned to large swaths of their pre-settlement ranges. As human development expands, people and animals are finding themselves in close quarters. </p>
<p>How do the animals react? Conservation researcher <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mjtNMbgAAAAJ&hl=en">Kathy Zeller</a> and her colleagues radio-collared black bears in central and western Massachusetts and found that the bears avoided populated areas, except when their natural food sources were less abundant in spring and fall. During those lean seasons, the bears would visit food sources in developed areas, such as bird feeders and garbage cans – but they <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-bears-adapt-to-life-near-humans-by-burning-the-midnight-oil-118899">foraged at night</a>, contrary to their usual habits, to avoid contact with humans. </p>
<p>“Wild animals are increasing their nocturnal activity in response to development and other human activities, such as hiking, biking and farming,” Zeller reports. “And people who are scared of bears may be comforted to know that most of the time, black bears are just as scared of them.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-bears-adapt-to-life-near-humans-by-burning-the-midnight-oil-118899">Black bears adapt to life near humans by burning the midnight oil</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fuzzy black and white image of a bear walking in a developed area." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467003/original/file-20220603-11-fytiqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bear on a residential driveway in Ontario, Canada, at 4 a.m., photographed by a trail camera with night vision.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/black-bear-prowling-by-my-home-at-night-royalty-free-image/1265270981">Pixel-Productions/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Wild animals turn up in unexpected places</h2>
<p>When a recovering species shows up on its old turf or in its former waters, humans aren’t always happy to make room for it. Ecologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=x-evXF4AAAAJ">Veronica Frans</a> studied sea lions in New Zealand, a formerly endangered species that moves inland from the coast to breed, often showing up <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-endangered-species-recover-humans-may-need-to-make-room-for-them-and-its-not-always-easy-172570">on local roads or in backyards</a>. </p>
<p>Frans and her colleagues created a database that they used to find and map potential breeding grounds for sea lions all over the New Zealand mainland. They also identified potential challenges for the animals, such as roads and fences that could block their inland movement.</p>
<p>“When wild species enter new areas, they inevitably will have to adapt, and often will have new kinds of interactions with humans,” Frans writes. “I believe that when communities understand the changes and are involved in planning for them, they can prepare for the unexpected, with coexistence in mind.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-endangered-species-recover-humans-may-need-to-make-room-for-them-and-its-not-always-easy-172570">When endangered species recover, humans may need to make room for them – and it's not always easy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="'Petting chart' image of a bison with various sections marked 'Nope,' 'Ouch,' and similar messages." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467002/original/file-20220603-15435-k1xuy1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seriously, don’t pet the bison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Wildlife_Petting_Chart_%28NPS%29.jpg">National Park Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Your presence has a big impact</h2>
<p>How close to wildlife is too close? Guidelines vary, but as a starting point, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/watchingwildlife/7ways.htm">the U.S. National Park Service recommends</a> staying at least 25 yards (23 meters) away from wild animals, and 100 yards (91 meters) from predators such as bears or wolves.</p>
<p>In a review of hundreds of studies, conservation scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-Spw_2cAAAAJ&hl=en">Jeremy Dertien</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uflMR0gAAAAJ&hl=en">Courtney Larson</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DHusKacAAAAJ&hl=en">Sarah Reed</a> found that human presence <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-hike-so-close-to-me-how-the-presence-of-humans-can-disturb-wildlife-up-to-half-a-mile-away-162223">may affect many wild species’ behavior at much longer distances</a>. </p>
<p>“Animals may flee from nearby people, decrease the time they feed and abandon nests or dens,” they report. “Other effects are harder to see, but can have serious consequences for animals’ health and survival. Wild animals that detect humans can experience physiological changes, such as increased heart rates and elevated levels of stress hormones.” </p>
<p>The scholars’ review found that the distance at which human presence starts to affect wildlife varies by species, although large animals generally need more distance. Small mammals and birds may change their behavior when people come within 300 feet (91 meters), while large mammals like elk and moose can be affected by humans up to 3,300 feet (1,006 meters) away – more than half a mile.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-hike-so-close-to-me-how-the-presence-of-humans-can-disturb-wildlife-up-to-half-a-mile-away-162223">Don't hike so close to me: How the presence of humans can disturb wildlife up to half a mile away</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A wooden shed overlooks a wetland with mountains in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467004/original/file-20220603-20-y96fne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photo blinds like this one at Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada make it easy to watch and photograph wild animals and birds unobtrusively.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/zjRrLV">DC Carr, USFWS/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Don’t take wildlife selfies, even if you’re a scientist</h2>
<p>There are stories from around the world of people <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvx4pv/indian-dies-taking-selfie-with-elephant-animals">dying in the act of taking selfies</a>. Some involve wildlife, such as a traveler in India who was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/07/bear-mauls-death-indian-man-who-tried-take-selfie/585843002/">mauled by an injured bear</a> in 2018 when he stopped to photograph himself with the animal.</p>
<p>Tourists are often the culprits, but they’re not alone. As ocean scientist <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinewardpaige/">Christine Ward-Paige</a> explains, scientists who have special permission to handle wild animals as part of their field research sometimes use this opportunity to <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-scientists-take-selfies-with-wild-animals-heres-why-they-shouldnt-61252">take personal photos with their subjects</a>. </p>
<p>“I have witnessed the making of many researcher-animal selfies, including photos with restrained animals during scientific study,” Ward-Paige recounts. “In most cases, the animal was only held for an extra fraction of a second while vigilant researchers simply glanced up and smiled for the camera already pointing in their direction.”</p>
<p>“But some incidents have been more intrusive. In one instance, researchers had tied a large shark to a boat with ropes across its tail and gills so that they could measure, biopsy and tag it. Then they kept it restrained for an extra 10 minutes while the scientists took turns hugging it for photos.”</p>
<p>In Ward-Paige’s view, legitimizing wildlife selfies in this way encourages people who don’t have scientific training or understand animal behavior to think that taking them is OK. That undercuts warnings from agencies like the National Park Service and puts both people and animals in danger. </p>
<p>Instead, she urges fellow scientists to “work to show the vulnerability of our animal subjects more clearly” and help guide the public to observe wildlife safely and responsibly.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/even-scientists-take-selfies-with-wild-animals-heres-why-they-shouldnt-61252">Even scientists take selfies with wild animals. Here's why they shouldn't.</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The recent goring of a tourist who approached within 10 feet of a bison in Yellowstone National Park is a reminder that wild animals can be dangerous and people should keep safe distances.Jennifer Weeks, Senior Environment + Cities Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487802020-12-02T19:34:47Z2020-12-02T19:34:47ZHistorical photo of mountain of bison skulls documents animals on the brink of extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372394/original/file-20201201-12-l1x262.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C1794%2C1484&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men standing with pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville MI, 1892.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are living through <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400253">a period of unprecedented species extinction</a> due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09678">human-induced changes to the planet’s ecosystems</a>. This is not the first time human activities radically changed relationships between land and life. Illustrated by a famous photograph of remains, the extermination of bison from the North American West in the 19th century is one key example of catastrophic species loss. </p>
<p>As a visual studies researcher, I use photographs to analyze the impacts of colonization on human and non-human lives. Images of bison bones provide a window into the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2019.1677134">cultural and ecological relations that tie animal and human lives together</a>. Through photographs, we can also think about <a href="https://www.depauw.edu/site/humanimalia/issue%2020/taschereau%20mamers.html">bison extermination as part of a history of relationships</a>.</p>
<h2>An iconic image</h2>
<p>The most famous photograph of bison extermination is a grisly image of a mountain of bison skulls. It was taken outside of Michigan Carbon Works in Rougeville, Mich., in 1892. At the close of the 18th century, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/destruction-of-the-bison/8D2DA1D99CDCD220EB134040265AF627">there were between 30 and 60 million bison on the continent</a>. By the time of this photograph, that population was reduced to <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17748/17748-h/17748-h.htm">only 456 wild bison</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man stands on top of enormous pile of buffalo skulls; another man stands in front of pile with his foot resting on a buffalo skull; rustic cage is at foot of pile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366250/original/file-20201028-21-2w0p5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men standing with pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville Mich., 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increased colonization of the West led to the large-scale slaughter of bison. The arrival of white settler hunters with their weapons, as well as <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w12969">growing market demand for hides and bones</a>, intensified the killing. Most herds were exterminated between 1850 and the late 1870s. </p>
<p>The photograph shows the massive scale of this destruction. A man-made mountain emerging from the image’s grassy foreground, the pile of bones as appears part of the landscape. The image can be read as an example of what Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has called “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300099430/manufactured-landscapes">manufactured landscapes</a>.” What was taken from prairie land to make this manufactured landscape in Michigan?</p>
<p>The Rougeville photograph is often used to illustrate the scale of bison extermination. It appears in <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/natural-areas-journal/volume-34/issue-3/043.034.0312/Bison-Yesterday-Today-and-Tomorrow/10.3375/043.034.0312.pdf">conservation publications</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/bison-bison-bison-americas-new-national-mammal">magazines</a>, <a href="https://collider.com/the-revenant-images-leonardo-dicaprio-tom-hardy/">films</a> and recent <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGft8NZJuy6/">protest memes</a>. The photograph has become an icon of this animal’s slaughter. But this photograph is more than just a symbol of human-caused destruction and hubris. Analyzing the image with multiple lenses illustrates a history of relationships.</p>
<p>The mound of skulls also indicates the abundance of bison life. But what was life on the Prairies like before bison extermination? What relationships did bison have before their deaths? </p>
<h2>Human-bison relationships</h2>
<p>We know that Indigenous Nations and bison herds were closely linked. The vast number of bison herds shaped the lives of Indigenous Nations by facilitating the formations of large, politically and socially complex communities across the Prairies. Many Indigenous scholars demonstrate the interrelation of Plains Indigenous Nations and bison herds, sometimes referred to as buffalo. </p>
<p>For example, Cree political scientist <a href="http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/political_studies/faculty/3707.html">Keira Ladner</a> studied the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07078552.2003.11827132">non-hierarchical organization of Blackfoot communities and practices of collaborative decision-making</a>. These community practices are rooted in close relationships to bison herds, which work as non-coercive collectives in which no single animal dominates.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="https://www.buffalotreaty.com/treaty">Buffalo Treaty</a>, an Indigenous-led effort to reintroduce wild bison <a href="https://www.buffalotreaty.com/relationships">first signed in 2014</a>, describes the buffalo as a relative of Plains Indigenous peoples. The treaty states: “Buffalo is part of us and we are part of buffalo culturally, materially and spiritually.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/no1MYbYkTgY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Buffalo Calling,’ a film by Tasha Hubbard.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cree scholar and filmmaker <a href="https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/thubbard">Tasha Hubbard</a> has documented <a href="https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/3272">stories about bison extermination from many Plains Indigenous Nations</a>. These stories mourn the trauma of losing bison — a non-human community many Indigenous Nations see as relations. Extermination radically undermined possibilities of life for Indigenous and bison communities. Hubbard argues that <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/216/chapter-abstract/109060/Buffalo-Genocide-in-Nineteenth-Century-North?redirectedFrom=fulltext">bison extermination was a form of genocide</a>.</p>
<p>Through the lens of interrelationship, the photograph takes on additional meaning. As Dakota scholar <a href="https://kimtallbear.com/">Kim TallBear</a> reminds us: “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/581600/pdf">Indigenous peoples have never forgotten that non-humans are agential beings engaged in social relations that profoundly shape human lives</a>.” The pile of skulls is not only symbolic of the destruction of an ecosystem. It is also a symbol of the loss of relations.</p>
<h2>Multi-species relationships</h2>
<p>Bison made the Prairies hospitable for many other communities. Each skull represents one 600-kilogram animal — bison are the largest land mammals in North America. Bison are not just massive in size, they are also a keystone species in the West, meaning they <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1312122">have a dramatic influence on an ecosystem</a>. If one of these species disappears, no other species can fill its ecological role, and the whole ecosystem changes as a result. </p>
<p>The skulls in the photograph do not just represent the loss of bison, but the disruption of an entire ecosystem. Each bison killed meant the end of grazing, wallowing and migrating practices that make the land hospitable for other species. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3375/043.039.0405">hundreds of species of insects live in bison dung</a>, providing food for birds, turtles and bats. When bison roll in dirt, they create depressions called wallows, which fill with spring rain and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031(2003)150%5B0158:UOBWBA%5D2.0.CO;2">provide homes for tadpoles and frogs</a>. Without the presence of bison, habitats and food for these and many other species disappear.</p>
<h2>Colonial capitalist relationships</h2>
<p>The bison skulls are not alone in the photograph. Two men in suits pose proudly with the skulls. Their presence signifies another aspect of human-animal relationships: commodity or market relations. </p>
<p>Each skull was collected from across the Prairies and shipped east by train or steamship. Once they arrived at facilities like Michigan Carbon Works, bison bones were rendered as fertilizer, glue and ash. The bones produced commodities, like bone china, which were sold in European and North American cities. Crates — like the large one in the foreground of the image — were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2017.1387087">technologies of colonial capitalism</a>, moving bones from prairies to factories and then finished products to market.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man stands in front of pile of bison skulls with his foot resting on a buffalo skull; rustic cage is at foot of pile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366282/original/file-20201028-13-6rwgmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from photograph of men standing with pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville, Mich., 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The photograph also represents the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-8177747">network of infrastructures</a> that settler colonial agents imposed across North America. Settler infrastructure — from <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520296640/empires-tracks">railways</a> and roads to factories and markets — radically intensified the <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/animal-capital">transformation of animals into commodities</a>. The <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/blood-of-extraction">extractive industries of colonial capitalism</a> devastated habitat and biodiversity, as well as relationships between bison, other plant and animal species and Indigenous Nations. <a href="https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=779">Similar industries are driving the large-scale extinctions happening today</a> and predicted to continue in the near future.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>There are currently 31,000 wild bison living in conservation herds in North America. The species is considered <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2815/123789863">“near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List</a>. This indicates that conservation efforts have improved chances for bison species survival, but protections are still needed. </p>
<p>These remaining animals are the descendants of those few hundred bison who survived the 19th-century extermination. With the help of conservation projects, including the Indigenous-led <a href="https://www.buffalotreaty.com/">Buffalo Treaty</a> and <a href="https://itbcbuffalonation.org/">InterTribal Buffalo Council</a>, bison continue to survive. </p>
<p>As a close reading of the Rougeville photograph from multiple perspectives demonstrates that the scale of bison loss is dramatic. Relationships on the Prairies were forever changed by the extermination of the species in its wild, free-ranging form.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danielle Taschereau Mamers receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. </span></em></p>Historical photographs of bison extermination are a window into a history of relationships between humans, bison and the environment.Danielle Taschereau Mamers, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, English and Cultural Studies, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1373432020-06-17T12:16:03Z2020-06-17T12:16:03ZCan Asia end its uncontrolled consumption of wildlife? Here’s how North America did it a century ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341961/original/file-20200615-65930-1b0hqax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C3916%2C2608&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Burning confiscated elephant ivory and animal horns in Myanmar's first public display of action against the illegal wildlife trade, Oct. 4, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elephant-ivory-and-animal-horns-burn-during-a-ceremony-to-news-photo/1045308816?adppopup=true">Ye Aung Thu/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was a dark time for animals. Poaching was rampant. Wild birds and mammals were <a href="https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1950/10/15/how-we-massacred-the-passenger-pigeon">being slaughtered by the thousands</a>. An out-of-control wildlife trade was making once-common animals <a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/return-white-tailed-deer#1">hard to find</a> and pushing rare species into extinction.</p>
<p>This is the story of North America a century ago, and of Asia today. But there was a surprise ending in America, and I believe there could be one in Asia. </p>
<p>Today North America has abundant wildlife. Much of my research as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Rd3MdDkAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1">wildlife biologist</a> focuses on documenting the rebound of species that once were hunted into scarcity, including <a href="https://www.fws.gov/home/wolfrecovery/">wolves</a>, <a href="https://faculty.cnr.ncsu.edu/christophersdeperno/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/07/PR138-Bragina-Coyotes-and-deer-JWM.pdf">deer</a> and <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acv.12138?casa_token=p6gRc5gsjH0AAAAA%3A2012rwgyWCqzsSYTDTxwBGpoTs_Zi2IYme7qwmQVFjTAdGVCsRnLWU__a5EQDQcJBAplMtmsdQAXQg">fishers</a>. </p>
<p>This is the outcome of what I call the North American wildlife conservation miracle. A century ago, with many species on the brink of extinction, people here stopped overusing wildlife and created a new culture of conservation.</p>
<p>Today unregulated wildlife trade in Asia is decimating species in much of the world, and now even threatens humans through the likely <a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02571158/document">spillover of the SARS-CoV-2 virus</a> from bats or pangolins to humans. Suddenly the harm caused by this rampant wildlife trade is in the spotlight, which creates an opportunity to pull off a conservation miracle in Asia. I hope lessons from the American experience can help.</p>
<h2>Out-of-control wildlife trade</h2>
<p>In the late 1800s and early 1900s the seemingly endless bounty of America’s wildlife began to run out. By 1878, three northeast species – the <a href="https://www.fieldguidetoextinctbirds.com/?p=3101">Labrador duck</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/science/great-auks-extinction.html">great auk</a> and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/88/2/371/833360">sea mink</a> – went extinct. The <a href="https://www.pgc.pa.gov/Wildlife/WildlifeSpecies/Elk/Pages/HistoryofElkinPA.aspx">eastern elk</a>, the largest mammal in most eastern states, followed in the 1880s. Even highly resilient species like <a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/return-white-tailed-deer#1">white-tailed deer</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/4/23/18511314/canada-goose-history">Canada goose</a> declined sharply. Bison once numbered 30 million, but were down to a <a href="https://www.fws.gov/bisonrange/timeline.htm">few hundred</a> animals by the late 1880s. </p>
<p>The pioneer delusion of endless bounty was replaced by an acceptance that there was nothing they could do about it. American settlers had a “manifest destiny” mindset, believing they were destined to expand across the continent, and accepted that the loss of other species was an inevitable consequence of that. </p>
<p>Then the bison didn’t go extinct. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341960/original/file-20200615-65956-1qaekg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Christmas Season,’ 1878, an engraving by Arthur Burdett Frost of a wild game stand at New York City’s Fulton Market showing a bear, deer and many types of birds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-d81e-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">NYPL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Back from the brink</h2>
<p>For some Americans, <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-president-who-saved-the-american-bison/">including Theodore Roosevelt</a>, the prospect of erasing an iconic species like bison was a call to action. They formed the <a href="http://www.ambisonsociety.org/">American Bison Society</a>, which bred bison at New York’s Bronx Zoo and shipped them west in hope of repopulating their former ranges.</p>
<p>As president, Roosevelt helped create some of the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm">first national wildlife refuges</a> and signed <a href="https://www.fws.gov/international/laws-treaties-agreements/us-conservation-laws/lacey-act.html">laws</a> restricting the wildlife trade. But the bulk of the work was done by states and individuals. </p>
<p>Americans spoke out against large-scale hunting. George Bird Grinnell, editor of the sporting journal Forest and Stream, used the magazine as a platform to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/envhis/article-abstract/22/3/553/3778210">call for protecting birds</a>. Grinnell later teamed with Teddy Roosevelt to create the <a href="https://www.boone-crockett.org/">Boone and Crockett Club</a>, a group of conservation-minded hunters. Two Boston socialites, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/">Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall</a>, formed the Massachusetts Audubon Society and worked to end the custom of adorning ladies’ hats with plumes from wild birds. </p>
<p>By the 1930s every state had a <a href="https://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/FAWILD.HTML">wildlife agency</a> funded by taxes and hunting license fees. These agencies shut down most wildlife harvests, protected and restored habitat and reintroduced animals that had been eradicated, such as turkeys and otters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341963/original/file-20200615-65956-kkqlad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first U.S. ‘duck stamp,’ issued by the federal government in 1934. Purchase of a current duck stamp is required to hunt migratory waterbirds, with proceeds funding migratory bird conservation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fws.gov/birds/get-involved/duck-stamp/federal-duck-stamp-gallery-1934-1935.php">USFWS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When hunting resumed, states managed when it could take place and how many animals a person could harvest. Ecology was a new field, and scientists like <a href="https://www.aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold/">Aldo Leopold</a> adapted its principles to create wildlife management as a new branch of study that could help inform these regulations.</p>
<p>Today deer, turkey, bear, elk, ducks and geese <a href="http://www.jimsterba.com/">are abundant</a> in many parts of North America. State governments carefully regulate harvests. Wildlife is not sold commercially for food in the U.S., unlike <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/australias-kangaroo-cull-humane-and-sustainable-or-exercise-in-cruelty">Australia</a> and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/animalproducts/game_en">much of Europe</a>. Trapping and sale of fur-bearing animals like beaver and fisher is <a href="https://www.fishwildlife.org/afwa-inspires/furbearer-management">managed sustainably</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, wildlife conservation in North America still faces serious challenges, including <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw1313">habitat loss</a>, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/07/wolverines-battling-climate-change-shrinking-north-territory-feature/">climate change</a> and <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/mercurys_silent_toll_on_the_worlds_wildlife">pollution</a>. But unsustainable hunting is no longer a problem, and legal hunting helps fund conservation for all species. </p>
<h2>Will Asia stop eating wildlife?</h2>
<p>Over the last 20 years, demand for wildlife products in Asia has driven a collapse of animal populations there, as well as in Africa and Latin America. Most larger mammal species outside of North America today are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1165115">primarily threatened by poaching</a> for food, art and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/08/08/extinction-by-traditional-chinese-medicine-an-environmental-disaster/#6e8a50565bd3">traditional medicines of dubious effectiveness</a>. </p>
<p>But it seems no species have been safe from this scourge. Consumers will pay high prices for exotic dishes like <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3001927/chinese-cooking-star-kills-and-chops-rare-giant-salamander">braised salamander</a> and soup made from the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/02/09/466185043/chinese-taste-for-fish-bladder-threatens-tiny-porpoise-in-mexico">swim bladder of the totoaba, a giant Mexican fish</a>. </p>
<p>Conservationists hope to seize on the tragedy of the SARS-Cov-2 spillover to end the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-coronavirus-emerged-from-the-global-wildlife-trade-and-may-be-devastating-enough-to-end-it-133333">global wildlife trade</a>, or at least <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-why-a-blanket-ban-on-wildlife-trade-would-not-be-the-right-response-135746">regulate it more tightly.</a> What lessons can the North American experience offer? </p>
<p>First, it is critical to reduce demand. This was a <a href="http://wildlifehabitat.tamu.edu/Lessons/Habitat-Concepts-1/Readings/A-Conservation-Timeline.pdf">slow process</a> a century ago. But COVID-19 has cast a stigma on wildlife products that could help turn the tide in Asia, just as public shaming in the U.S. helped end demand for things like <a href="http://eustis.estate/location/on-the-wing/">feather hats</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/7a69d5168701e7b1eb26e37576f1cec7">fur from spotted cats</a>. </p>
<p>Today animal welfare advocates are using social media to urge Asian consumers to avoid products made from endangered animals. In response to efforts like these, China <a href="https://hongkongfp.com/2017/12/27/basketball-star-yao-ming-joins-calls-stop-ivory-trade-china-ban-set-kick-sunday/">banned domestic sales of ivory in 2017</a>, and Chinese <a href="https://wildaid.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/WildAid-Sharks-in-Crisis-2018.pdf">consumption of shark fin soup</a> has declined sharply over the past decade.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wcjBy0fyGl0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Former NBA star Yao Ming has campaigned for a decade to reduce Chinese demand for wildlife products.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, this effort will involve many players, including national governments, regional authorities and nongoverment organizations like <a href="https://www.svw.vn/">Save Vietnam’s Wildlife</a>, <a href="http://batconservationindia.org/">Bat Conservation India Trust</a> and <a href="https://www.savepangolins.org/about-us">Save Pangolins</a>. These groups understand local culture and politics, and can connect directly with communities where wildlife is hunted and sold.</p>
<p>Finally, we need some optimism. The persistence of the bison a century ago showed Americans that extinction wasn’t the only option. It is important now to <a href="https://www.wildlifeinsights.org/covid-19-message">monitor wildlife populations</a> so that efforts can target species most at risk, and to celebrate recoveries that might be early signs of a second conservation miracle.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roland Kays receives funding from The National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>In the 1800s, Americans hunted many wild species near or into extinction. Then in the early 1900s, the US shifted from uncontrolled consumption of wildlife to conservation. Could Asia follow suit?Roland Kays, Research Associate Professor of Wildlife and Scientist at NC Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1326272020-04-29T15:48:10Z2020-04-29T15:48:10ZHow bison, moose and caribou stepped in to do the cleaning work of extinct mammoths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330714/original/file-20200427-145560-nibdjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3777%2C2050&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unlike mammoths, bison survived in Alaska at the end of the last ice age.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/QvCcqTHlLCE">Hans Veth/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The extinction of one species can create ripples that transform an ecosystem. That’s particularly true for so-called “ecosystem engineer” species. Beavers are one example – they dam rivers, creating ponds and channels that <a href="https://theconversation.com/beavers-are-set-to-recolonise-the-uk-heres-how-people-and-the-environment-could-benefit-132116">offer refuge for spawning fish and small mammals</a>.</p>
<p>Large herbivores such as <a href="http://thinkelephants.blogspot.com/2012/10/elephants-ecosystems-engineers.html">elephants, horses and reindeer</a> are engineers too – they break down shrubs and trees to create open grasslands, habitats that benefit a wealth of species.</p>
<p>We know that their ancestors – such as the woolly mammoth – shaped the world around them in a similar way, but what happened to those ancient ecosystems when they died out?</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/tracking-latequaternary-extinctions-in-interior-alaska-using-megaherbivore-bone-remains-and-dung-fungal-spores/BD3C13789FBB262EDCA8432CBB47067E">new research published in the journal Quaternary Research</a> studied the extinction of mammoth, wild horse and saiga antelope towards the end of the last ice age in interior Alaska, analysing fossilised <a href="https://methodsblog.com/2016/07/19/european-bison/">dung fungal spores</a> recovered from the bottom of lakes and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-17-1-4.htm">ancient bones recovered from buried</a> sediments.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-what-effect-did-the-asteroid-that-wiped-out-the-dinosaurs-have-on-plants-and-trees-132386">Curious Kids: What effect did the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs have on plants and trees?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We wanted to know how ancient ecosystems responded to these species dying out so that it might teach us more about mass extinctions today. What we discovered could offer hope for modern ecosystems facing biodiversity loss.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330716/original/file-20200427-145536-v86bx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A museum replica of a woolly mammoth. Mammoths helped maintain open habitats by grazing herbs, trees and bushes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dvur-kralove-czech-republic-08132013-big-1024532596">Noska Photo/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How ancient ecosystems coped with extinctions</h2>
<p>The late-Quaternary extinctions occurred towards the end of the last ice age. In North America, they saw the loss of large herbivores and carnivores, whose relatives still roam other continents as elephants, wild horses and tigers. This was a period of rapid climate change and growing pressure from humans.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269820457_Late_Quaternary_megafaunal_extinctions_on_the_continents_A_short_review">Previous research showed that 69% of large mammals</a> were lost from North America around this time. Similar losses were seen on other continents, <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/dung-fungus-reveal-that-humans-not-climate-change-killed-australias-giant-beasts">including Australia</a>. The diversity of mammal species shrank, but more significant was the <a href="https://doc.rero.ch/record/210391/files/PAL_E4398.pdf">crash in numbers of all mammals</a>, including species that survived the extinction event.</p>
<p><a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12576">Previous research</a> showed that elsewhere in the Americas, the loss of ecosystem engineers like the woolly mammoth led to an explosion in plant growth, as trees and shrubs were no longer grazed and browsed so intensively. In turn, there were larger and more frequent wildfires.</p>
<p>But in Alaska, our results revealed that other species of wild herbivores, including bison, moose, caribou and musk ox, increased in abundance, making up for the loss of mammoths, saiga antelopes and wild horses.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330718/original/file-20200427-145499-105esni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saiga antelopes used to roam North America, but they are now only found in scattered pockets of Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiga_antelope#/media/File:Saiga_antelope_at_the_Stepnoi_Sanctuary.jpg">Andrey Giljov/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This suggests that as extinctions occurred, other large herbivores were able to fill the gap, partially taking over the lost role of ecosystem engineer. This insight from 13,000 years ago could offer hope for modern conservationists. Substituting an extinct ecosystem engineer with a similar species still living today may work to revive lost ecological processes.</p>
<p>Reintroducing large herbivores in this way is often referred to as “<a href="https://www.esf.edu/efb/parry/Invert_Cons_14_Readings/Seddon_etal_2014.pdf">rewilding</a>”. Today’s landscapes on most continents are <a href="https://www.chrispackham.co.uk/news/what-is-rewilding">empty of large vertebrate animals</a>, largely because of the late Quaternary extinctions we studied. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257973653_Rewilding_North_America">One of the key arguments</a> behind rewilding is that bringing some of those species back to landscapes could boost biodiversity more broadly and create more diverse, resilient ecosystems.</p>
<p>But without resurrecting the woolly mammoth, our research indicates it may be possible to bring back some of the ecosystem engineering benefits of extinct species by reintroducing their living relatives or substitute species, ultimately helping surviving plants and animals to thrive.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/could-resurrecting-mammoths-help-stop-arctic-emissions-95956">Could resurrecting mammoths help stop Arctic emissions?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our work in Alaska shows that the consequences of engineer extinctions are not always overwhelmingly negative. Studying this rare instance when ecosystems coped better with extinctions can help us design more effective conservation measures for megaherbivores today. </p>
<p>A good example of creative thinking in conservation can be found in Columbia. Here, pet hippos that escaped from Pablo Escobar’s private collection have multiplied in the wild and now appear to be recreating processes that were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/24/pablo-escobars-cocaine-hippos-show-how-invasive-species-can-restore-a-lost-world-aoe">lost thousands of years ago</a> when native megaherbivores died out. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330721/original/file-20200427-145499-1a33zx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These hippos are technically invasive species in Colombia and are wild descendants of Pablo Escobar’s pets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hippopotamus-colombia-1351698167">Perla Sofia/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This includes the creation of well trodden hippo paths between wetlands and feeding areas on firmer ground, which help deepen water channels, disperse seeds and fertilise wetlands. Over 13,000 years ago, these processes would have been carried out by the now extinct <a href="https://prehistoric-fauna.com/Macrauchenia-patagonica">giant llama</a>, and semi-aquatic <a href="https://dcpaleo.org/notoungulata/">notoungulata</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330738/original/file-20200427-145544-1ud4ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Notoungulata were hoofed, sometimes heavy-bodied grazing mammals that inhabited South America from 57 million years to 11,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notoungulata#/media/File:Toxodon.jpg">ArthurWeasley/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although it may seem an eternity since mammoths walked the Earth, our research suggests that some of the effects they had on the world around them can be resurrected without a Jurassic Park-style breakthrough in <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-resurrection-of-extinct-animals-1091999">de-extinction</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maarten van Hardenbroek van Ammerstol receives funding from UKRI/NERC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ambroise Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The historical record is full of surprises – and it could encourage conservationists to think more creatively.Ambroise Baker, Lecturer in Biology, Teesside UniversityMaarten van Hardenbroek van Ammerstol, Lecturer in Physical Geography, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269892020-02-19T14:00:54Z2020-02-19T14:00:54ZAnimals large and small once covered North America’s prairies – and in some places, they could again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315363/original/file-20200213-10985-122q85b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3008%2C1999&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bighorn sheep on grassland in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Berger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the grip of winter, the North American prairies can look deceptively barren. But many wild animals have evolved through harsh winters on these open grasslands, foraging in the snow and sheltering in dens from cold temperatures and biting winds.</p>
<p>Today most of our nation’s prairies are covered with the amber waves of grain that Katharine Lee Bates lauded in “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful">America the Beautiful</a>,” written in 1895. But scientists know surprisingly little about today’s remnant biodiversity in the grasslands – especially the status of what we call “big small mammals,” such as badgers, foxes, jackrabbits and porcupines.</p>
<p>Land conservation in the heartland has been underwhelming. According to most estimates, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm">less than 4%</a> of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem that once covered some 170 million acres of North America is left. And when native grasslands are altered, populations of endemic species like prairie dogs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008562">shrink dramatically</a>.</p>
<p>Together, we have more than 60 years of experience using field-based, hypothesis-driven science to conserve wildlife in grassland systems in North America and across the globe. We have studied and protected species ranging from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.01.003">pronghorn</a> and bison in North America to saiga and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08676">wild yak</a> in Central Asia. If scientists can identify what has been lost and retained here in the U.S., farmers, ranchers and communities can make more informed choices about managing their lands and the species that depend upon them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315370/original/file-20200213-11023-1it0nfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Major types of North American grasslands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NAMAP.jpg">Karen Launchbaugh/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Two harsh centuries of settlement</h2>
<p>North America’s prairies stretch north from Mexico into Canada, and from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains. Grasslands also exist in areas farther west, between the Rockies and Pacific coastal ranges.</p>
<p>When Thomas Jefferson approved the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/lewis-clark">Lewis and Clark Expedition</a> in 1803, this territory was home to Native Americans and abundant wildlife. Vast, unbroken horizons of contiguous grasslands supported millions of <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr135_2/rmrs_gtr135_2_013_034.pdf">prairie dogs, pronghorn, bison and elk</a>, and thousands of bighorn sheep. Birds were also numerous, including <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Prairie-Chicken/overview">greater prairie-chickens</a>, multiple types of grouse and more than 3 billion <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/passenger-pigeon">passenger pigeons</a>. </p>
<p>Lewis and Clark kept detailed records of the <a href="https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/item/lc.sup.johnsgard.01">plants and animals they encountered</a> on their three-year journey. Their journals describe grizzly bears and wolves, black-footed ferrets and burrowing owls, sage grouse and prairie chickens. Sources like this and John James Audubon’s <a href="https://www.audubon.org/birds-of-america">“Birds of America</a>,” published between 1827 and 1838, confirm that before European settlement, North America’s prairies teemed with wildlife.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315372/original/file-20200213-10980-4pwcgt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pronghorn, which Lewis and Clark called ‘Speed goats,’ under the shadow of Wyoming’s Wind River Range.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Berger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That changed as <a href="https://www.oupress.com/books/9783608/the-natural-west">European immigrants moved west</a> over the next hundred years. Market hunting was one cause, but settlers also tilled and poisoned, fertilized and fenced the land, drained aquifers and damaged soils. </p>
<p>As humans altered the prairies, bison disappeared from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00899.x">99% of their native range</a>. Prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, wolves and grizzly bears followed the same sad course. </p>
<p>In the mid-20th century, conservationists began fighting to protect and restore what remained. It isn’t surprising that wildlife agencies and conservation organizations focused on targets that were big, famous and economically important: Birds for hunting, deer for dinner and fisheries for food and sport.</p>
<p>Some efforts succeeded. Montana has retained every species that Lewis and Clark observed there. In 2016 Congress passed legislation declaring bison the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/bison-bison-bison-americas-new-national-mammal">U.S. national mammal</a>, following various restoration initiatives in places such as the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma and the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm">Tallgrass Prairie Preserve</a> in the Flint Hills of Kansas.
Pronghorn antelope, which Lewis and Clark called “speed goats,” have rebounded from fewer than 20,000 in the early 20th century to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170403-americas-pronghorns-are-survivors-of-a-mass-extinction">some 700,000 today</a>, ranging across grasslands from northern Mexico and Texas to North Dakota, Montana and southern Canada.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6YD14WM9j80?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma is a complex environment harboring a rich diversity of plants and animals.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But elk remain rare on the grassy savannas, as do prairie dogs and wild bison. North American grassland birds – larks and pipits, curlews and mountain plovers – are in <a href="https://www.audubon.org/conservation/working-lands/grasslands-report">decline or serious collapse</a>. Introduction of nonnative exotic fish, reduced water flows in prairie rivers and streams due to agriculture, and declines in water quality and quantity have decimated native fish species and aquatic invertebrates, such as freshwater mussels, in the waterways of grassland ecosystems.</p>
<h2>Where the animals still roam</h2>
<p>In contrast to North America, other regions still have large intact grasslands with functional ecosystems. White-tailed gazelles and khulan (Asiatic wild ass) still <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605316000417">move hundreds of miles</a> across the vast unfenced steppes of Mongolia. White-eared kob, a sub-Saharan antelope, travel hundreds of miles every year across a <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/w/white-eared-kob/">North Dakota-sized swath</a> of southern Sudan in one of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9712">Africa’s longest land migrations</a>.</p>
<p>Chiru (antelope) and kiang (large wild asses) maintain their historical movements across the vast Tibetan plateau. Even war-torn Afghanistan has <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/alex-dehgan/the-snow-leopard-project/9781610396967/">designated two national parks</a> to ensure that snow leopards, wolves and ibex can continue to roam.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XlzUL4ZscaQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">White-eared kob and tiang, two species of antelope, migrate seasonally across southern Sudan in search of grass and water.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some parts of the North American prairies could support this kind of biodiversity again. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Hills">Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhills_(Nebraska)">Nebraska’s Sandhills</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Front">Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front</a> all retain areas that have never been plowed, ranging from 1 million to 4 million acres. Public agencies and nonprofit conservation groups are already working in these areas to promote conservation and support grassland ecosystems.</p>
<h2>Knowledge gaps impede conservation</h2>
<p>Conserving native species on American grasslands has moved slowly because this region has been so compromised by land conversion for farming and development. What’s more, despite technological innovations and powerful analytical tools, scientists don’t have realistic estimates today of abundance or population trends for most vertebrate species, whether they are mammal, bird or fish.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315373/original/file-20200213-11005-1qskqrt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White-tailed jackrabbit in Wyoming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Berger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Measuring remnant diversity is a first step toward deciding what to prioritize for protection. One way we’re doing this is by posing simple questions to families who’ve lived out on these lands for multiple generations. One Montana rancher told us the last porcupine he saw was – well, he couldn’t remember, but they used to occur. Another, in Wyoming, said it had been perhaps two decades since he had last seen white-tailed jackrabbits, a species once common there. </p>
<p>From Colorado to New Mexico and the Dakotas to Utah, responses are similar. Across the region, the status of species like foxes, porcupines, white-tailed jack rabbits, beavers, badgers and marmots is punctuated by question marks. Continent-wide trends remain a mystery.</p>
<p>The good news is that national parks have inventory and monitoring programs that make it possible to assess trends more comprehensively for some of these species. Citizen scientists are helping by reporting occurrences of species such as <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/43117-Lepus">black-tailed jackrabbits</a>. As scientists delve further into databases, patterns of species retention or loss should become clearer. </p>
<p>For example, our work on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605308001051">white-tailed jack rabbits</a> revealed that decades ago they were abundant in the valleys in and around the Tetons of northwest Wyoming and spanned Yellowstone National Park’s northern range. However, by the year 2000 they were absent from the Tetons and occupied only a small area of Yellowstone.</p>
<p>The U.S. has a history of protecting its majestic mountains and deserts. But in our view, it has undervalued its biologically rich grasslands. With more support for conservation on the prairies, wildlife of all sizes – big and small – could again thrive on America’s fruited plains.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Berger is a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He receives funding from the US National Park Service and in-kind support from the Bureau of Land Management. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Beckmann is a conservation scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. </span></em></p>North America’s prairies once were home to millions of wild animals. Today, most of that land is farmed or developed, but some grasslands have never been plowed and could be rewilded.Joel Berger, Barbara Cox Anthony Chair in Wildlife Conservation, Colorado State UniversityJon Beckmann, Adjunct Faculty, University of Nevada, RenoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255342019-11-07T12:15:47Z2019-11-07T12:15:47ZHow do we know when a species at risk has recovered? It’s not just a matter of numbers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300162/original/file-20191104-88399-ttwu4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C2572%2C1748&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, N.D.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/KpY7EA">Jay Gannett</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around the world, animals and plants are disappearing at alarming rates. In May 2019, a major U.N. report warned that <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/">around one million species</a> were at risk of extinction – more than at any other time in human history. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RMg7RqkAAAAJ">Conservation scientists like me</a> focus on predicting and preventing extinctions. But we see that as an essential first step, not a final goal. Ultimately, we want species to recover. </p>
<p>The challenge is that while extinction is easy to define, recovery is not. Until recently, there was no general definition of a “recovered” species. As a result, some species recovery plans are much less ambitious than others, and scientists don’t have a common yardstick for recognizing conservation successes.</p>
<p>To address this challenge, the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/">International Union for the Conservation of Nature</a>’s Species Survival Commission – the world’s largest network of conservationists – is developing a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13112">Green List of Species</a> to highlight species recovery. This tool will complement the well-known <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/">Red List</a>, which highlights endangered species. </p>
<p>While the Red List focuses on extinction risk, the Green List will measure recovery and conservation success. As a member of the team charged with making the Green List a practical conservation tool, I see it as a way of measuring the impact of conservation and communicating conservation success stories, as well as learning from failures.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1092304847544582145"}"></div></p>
<h2>Defining recovery</h2>
<p>To know how much conservation has accomplished, and to encourage ambitious conservation goals, we need an objective way to measure progress toward a species’ recovery. Studies of recovery plans developed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act show that some plans consider a species recovered even if its population <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2012.62.7.7">remains the same or shrinks</a> during the recovery effort. A standard definition of recovery would prevent such inconsistencies and encourage wildlife managers to aim higher. </p>
<p>Conservation scientists have long attempted to identify <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/61/1/39/304461">different facets of species recovery</a>. Reviewing these efforts, our team came up with several requirements for considering a species fully recovered. </p>
<p>As I explain with an international group of colleagues in a new study, one key idea is that populations of the species <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13425">should be “functional</a>.” By this we mean that they are able to perform all the roles that the species is known to play in ecosystems where it exists. This may seem like an obvious measurement, but in fact, some species that are considered to be “recovered” in the U.S. fail this test.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300163/original/file-20191104-88403-183y3eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Kirtland’s Warbler was declared recovered in the U.S. in 2019, but will still rely on land managers to maintain stands of jack pine where it nests and control parasitic cowbirds that prey on it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/bhwYUZ">Joel Trick/USFWS</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s your function?</h2>
<p>Each species has many kinds of ecological functions. For example, bees help plants reproduce by <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-honey-bees-wild-bees-are-also-key-pollinators-and-some-species-are-disappearing-89214">pollinating them</a>. When birds and bats eat fruits and later <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/animal-dispersal-in-rainforests-1673040">excrete the seeds</a>, they help forests regenerate. </p>
<p>Similarly, when salmon swim upstream to spawn and then are consumed by bears and other predators, that process <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-a-warming-climate-changes-kodiak-bears-diets-impacts-could-ripple-through-ecosystems-83131">moves essential nutrients</a> from the oceans up into rivers and forests. And when flammable grasses burn in the U.S. Southeast, they fuel fires that <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/1179">maintain longleaf pine forests</a>. </p>
<p>All these critical functions are possible only when enough members of the key species are present. Put another way, keeping a species alive is not enough – it also is essential to keep its functions from going extinct.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MPFhOcnPnc8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park has spotlighted the wolves’ ecological functions as regulators of grazing species. However, wolves once influenced much larger areas than they currently occupy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Functional extinction</h2>
<p>Scientists have <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/201998547_The_deflowering_of_Central_America">known for decades</a> that species may persist at such low numbers that they do not fulfill the ecological roles they used to perform. This can be true even if significant numbers of animals or plants are present.</p>
<p>One example is the American Bison, which is a great conservation success story in terms of preventing its extinction. Hunting reduced bison to just a few hundred individuals in western states at the end of the 19th century, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/bison-are-back-and-that-benefits-many-other-species-on-the-great-plains-107588">conservation initiatives have restored them</a> to public, private and Native American lands across the West.</p>
<p>Today bison <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2815/123789863">do not appear to be at risk of extinction</a>. However, they occupy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00899.x">less than 1% of their historical range</a>, and most of the roughly 500,000 animals that exist today are raised for commercial purposes. Fewer than 20,000 bison live in conservation herds – a small fraction of their pre-Columbian population, which totaled <a href="https://www.iucn.org/content/american-bison-status-survey-and-conservation-guidelines-2010">millions or tens of millions</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=149&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=149&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=187&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=187&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300159/original/file-20191104-88368-1s75l06.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=187&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Current IUCN classification for American bison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2815/123789863">IUCN</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before they were reduced to near-extinction, bison <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00899.x">shaped prairie habitats and landscapes</a> through wallowing, pounding and grazing. They influenced ecosystems by converting vegetation into protein biomass for predators, including people, and by redistributing nutrients in these ecosystems. </p>
<p>Even though bison are not at risk of extinction, for the purposes of their contributions to the ecosystems and landscapes they once inhabited, I believe the species should be considered to be functionally extinct and not a fully recovered species. </p>
<p>This does not mean its conservation is a failure. To the contrary, according to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13112">new conservation metrics</a> that I and other scientists have proposed for the Green List, the bison would receive high scores on several counts, including Conservation Legacy – meaning it has benefited significantly from past protective efforts – and Conservation Gain, or potential to respond positively to further initiatives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300164/original/file-20191104-88378-7od1rc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ospreys are efficient hunters that help to regulate fish populations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/2fBHyg6">Tracie Hall</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A full recovery</h2>
<p>For contrast, consider another species widely viewed as a conservation success story: <a href="https://theconversation.com/ospreys-recovery-from-pollution-and-shooting-is-a-global-conservation-success-story-111907">The osprey</a>. Populations of this fish-eating bird of prey crashed across North America in the 1950s to 1970s, primarily due to poisoning from the insecticide DDT and its derivatives. </p>
<p>Conservation efforts since then, including a federal ban on DDT and provision of nesting structures, have resulted in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3356/JRR-OSPR-14-04.1">dramatic recovery</a>, back to population levels before the declines. Actually, many U.S. and Canadian populations of Osprey <a href="https://birdsna.org/Species-Account/bna/species/osprey/introduction">now exceed historical numbers</a>. Under the Green List criteria we are proposing, this species would now be considered ecologically functional in most if not all parts of its range. </p>
<h2>Ambitious goals</h2>
<p>Conservation scientists have long considered a species’ influence on others and on the ecosystems it inhabits to be a fundamental aspect of its essence and its intrinsic value. The <a href="https://www.iucn.org/species/about/species-survival-commission/ssc-leadership-and-steering-committee/iucn-red-list-committee/iucn-green-list-species">Green List of Species initiative</a> seeks to go beyond simply preventing extinctions to defining recovered species as those that are ecologically functional across their natural ranges. This new focus aims to encourage conservation optimism by highlighting success stories and showing that with help, species once at risk can reclaim their places in the web of life.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>H. Resit Akcakaya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scientists have tracked endangered species for years. Now they’re figuring out how to highlight animals and plants that have recovered – but what does that mean?H. Resit Akcakaya, Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1075882019-01-18T11:41:13Z2019-01-18T11:41:13ZBison are back, and that benefits many other species on the Great Plains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248145/original/file-20181130-194928-1wuh6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A young bull bison grazes on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, Oklahoma.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Moran</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Driving north of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, an extraordinary landscape comes into view. Trees disappear and an immense landscape of grass emerges, undulating in the wind like a great, green ocean. </p>
<p>This is the Flint Hills. For over a century it has been cattle country, a place where cows grow fat on nutritious grasses. More recently, a piece of this landscape was transformed in 1989 when the nonprofit <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/">Nature Conservancy</a> bought the Barnard Ranch. It created a nature reserve there, the <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/tallgrass-prairie-preserve/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMInbfMrdTy3gIVCoFpCh1J-A0pEAAYASAAEgIDxvD_BwE">Tallgrass Prairie Preserve</a>, which now covers almost 40,000 acres. </p>
<p>A central element of the group’s conservation strategy was reintroducing the American bison (<em>Bison bison</em>), which had been eradicated from the land in the mid-1800s. Releasing the first bison in 1993 was a step toward restoring part of an ecosystem that once <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/tallgrass-prairie-preserve/">stretched from Texas to Minnesota</a>.</p>
<p>Today some 500,000 bison have been restored in over 6,000 <a href="http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/american_bison_report.pdf">locations</a>, including public lands, private ranches and Native American lands. As they return, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Thp19CcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">researchers like me</a> are gaining insights into their substantial ecological and conservation value.</p>
<h2>Near extinction</h2>
<p>It was not always certain that bison could rebound. Once numbering in the tens of millions, they dominated the Great Plains landscape until the late 1800s, anchoring a remarkable ecosystem that contained perhaps the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/45537">greatest concentration of mammals on Earth</a>. That abundance was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/destruction-of-the-bison/8D2DA1D99CDCD220EB134040265AF627">wiped out</a> as settlers and the U.S. government engaged in a brutally effective campaign to eradicate the ecosystem and the native cultures that relied on it. </p>
<p>Bison were shot by the millions, sometimes for “sport,” sometimes for profit, and ultimately to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/where-the-buffalo-no-longer-roamed-3067904/">deprive Native Americans of vital resources</a>. By 1890 fewer than 1,000 bison were left, and the outlook for them was bleak. Two small wild populations remained, in Yellowstone National Park and northern Alberta, Canada; and a few individuals survived in zoos and on private ranches. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254207/original/file-20190116-163271-1kiszd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bison skulls collected during the slaughter, mid-1870s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_skull_pile_edit.jpg">Source unknown</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recovery</h2>
<p>Remarkably, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/340410">a movement developed to save the bison</a> and ultimately became a conservation success story. Some former bison hunters, including prominent figures like William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and future President Theodore Roosevelt, gathered the few surviving animals, promoted captive breeding and eventually reintroduced them to the natural landscape. </p>
<p>With the establishment of additional populations on public and private lands across the Great Plains, the species was saved from immediate extinction. By 1920 it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.11.019">numbered about 12,000</a>. </p>
<p>Bison remained out of sight and out of mind for most Americans over the next half-century, but in the 1960s diverse groups began to consider the species’ <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.11.019">place on the landscape</a>. Native Americans wanted bison back on their ancestral lands. Conservationists wanted to restore parts of the Plains ecosystems. And ranchers started to view bison as an alternative to cattle production. </p>
<p>More ranches began raising bison, and Native American tribes started their own herds. Federal, state, tribal and private organizations established new conservation areas focusing in part on bison restoration, a process that continues today in locations such as the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm">Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve</a> in Kansas and the <a href="http://www.fortpecktribes.org/fgd/buffalo.htm">Fort Peck Reservation</a> in Montana. </p>
<p>By the early 2000s, the total North American population had <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.11.019">expanded to 500,000</a>, with about 90 percent being raised as livestock – but often in relatively natural conditions – and the rest in public parks and preserves. For scientists, this process has been an opportunity to learn how bison interact with their habitat.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="30" data-image="" data-title="Male bison grazing and bellowing in Yellowstone National Park." data-size="728070" data-source="NPS/Shan Burson" data-source-url="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/sounds-bison.htm" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1459/yell-yellmm8k2005918bison.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Male bison grazing and bellowing in Yellowstone National Park.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/sounds-bison.htm">NPS/Shan Burson</a><span class="download"><span>711 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/1459/yell-yellmm8k2005918bison.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<h2>Improving prairie landscapes</h2>
<p>Bison <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1525/bisi.1999.49.1.39.pdf">feed almost exclusively on grasses</a>, which, because they grow rapidly, tend to out-compete other plants. Bison’s selective grazing behavior produces higher biodiversity because it helps plants that normally are dominated by grasses to coexist. </p>
<p>Because they tend to graze intensively on recently burned zones and leave other areas relatively untouched, bison create a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-8901.2004.00937.x">diverse mosaic</a> of habitats. They also like to move, spreading their impacts over large areas. The variety they produce is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.03.009">key to the survival</a> of imperiled species such as the greater prairie chicken (<em>Tympanuchus cupido</em>) that prefer to use different patches for different behaviors, such as mating and nesting.</p>
<p>Bison impacts don’t stop there. They often kill woody vegetation by rubbing their bodies and horns on it. And by digesting vegetation and excreting their waste across large areas, they spread nutrients over the landscape. This can produce higher-quality vegetation that benefits other animals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254209/original/file-20190116-163271-vyn1gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grazing by bison on this stretch of prairie has produced an increase in forbs (nongrass flowering plants).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Moran</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Studies, including my own research, have shown that bison-induced changes in vegetation composition and quality grazing can increase the abundance and diversity of birds and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1603/EN14013">insects</a> in tallgrass prairies. Bison also affect their environment by <a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/15-facts-about-our-national-mammal-american-bison">wallowing</a> – rolling on the ground repeatedly to avoid biting insects and shed loose fur. This creates long-lasting depressions that further enhance <a href="https://doi.org/10.1674/0003-0031-165.1.60">plant</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2436">insect diversity</a>, because they are good habitats for plant and animal species that are not found in open areas of the prairie. In contrast, cattle do not wallow, so they do not provide these benefits.</p>
<p>It is hard to determine the ecological role that bison played before North America was settled by Europeans, but available evidence suggests they may have been <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bisi.1999.49.1.39">the most impactful animal</a> on the Plains – potentially a <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/keystone-species-15786127">keystone species</a> whose presence played a unique and crucial role in the ecology of prairies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254217/original/file-20190116-163292-1dcq6mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Male prairie chickens in the Flint Hills, Oklahoma, displaying for mates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greater_Prairie-Chickens_in_the_Flint_Hills_(7469130742).jpg">Greg Kramos/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The growth of bison ranching</h2>
<p>The return of the bison has generated a new industry on the Plains. The <a href="https://bisoncentral.com/">National Bison Association</a> promotes these animals as <a href="https://bisoncentral.com/the-bison-advantage/">long-lived, hardy and high-quality livestock</a>. The group hopes to double bison numbers through its <a href="https://bisoncentral.com/general-info/bison-1-millionbison-1-million-2/bison-1-million/">Bison 1 Million</a> commitment, a program designed to increase interest in bison ranching and consumption. </p>
<p>Advocates cite health, ecological and ethical arguments in support of bison ranching. Bison meat is lean and has a high protein content. Many bison ranchers are committed to ethical and sustainable ranching practices, which sometimes are lacking in modern industrial livestock farming. </p>
<p>“I have a love of nature and want to protect it. It was one of my family’s goals to restore the grasslands. Bison helped us regenerate the land,” Mimi Hillenbrand, owner and operator of the 777 Bison Ranch near Rapid City, South Dakota told me. She adds, “I love the animal. We are lucky that we brought them back. I learn every day from them.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4pfctlH77MM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">777 Bison Ranch owner Mimi Hillenbrand explains how raising bison has helped her family restore the health of their South Dakota land.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Thinking bigger</h2>
<p>Will bison live on in relatively small, isolated herds as they do now, or something greater? The <a href="https://www.americanprairie.org/">American Prairie Reserve</a>, a Montana-based nonprofit, has a big and controversial idea: creating an <a href="https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2015/06/18/prairie-reserve-still-attracting-fans-foes/28944461/">ecologically functioning 3 million acre preserve</a> of private, public and tribal lands in northeast Montana, with a herd of over 10,000 bison – the largest single population in the world. Although this would be small compared to the millions that once existed, it still would be something to see.</p>
<p>Bison were saved through the combined efforts of conservationists, scientists, ranchers and ultimately the general public. As their comeback continues, I believe that they can teach us how to be better stewards of the land and provide a future for the Plains where ecosystems and human cultures thrive.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article was updated on January 24, 2019 to correct the purchase date for the Barnard Ranch.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Moran is Professor of Biology at Hendrix College in Conway, AR. He has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, and the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, as well his employer, Hendrix College. Funding from Hendrix College supports research performed on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy. He is also a volunteer fundraiser for the Children's Eternal Rainforest based in Costa Rica.</span></em></p>Bison once dominated the Great Plains but were nearly wiped out by hunters in the 1800s. Now scientists are learning that bison’s presence improves plant and wildlife diversity on the prairies.Matthew D. Moran, Professor of Biology, Hendrix CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800182017-06-30T05:20:03Z2017-06-30T05:20:03ZFrom New York to Romania, restoration ecology is helping nature heal (and maybe humanity, too)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176117/original/file-20170628-31267-1eeq592.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Bronx River will never be the way it used to be, but it sure looks a lot better today than it did 20 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5658/23269378171_f7d91ff397_b.jpg">RickShaw/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New York City’s <a href="http://bronxriver.org/?pg=content&p=abouttheriver">Bronx River</a> used to be an open sewer, more useful for carrying industrial waste than for hosting fish. Today, thanks to the efforts of environmental groups and the communities that live along this 37-kilometre stretch of water, the river is steadily making its way back to health. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"880102305542139906"}"></div></p>
<p>This is called restoration ecology. And from the northern reaches of New York City, as elsewhere, this 80-year-old philosophy is slowly making its way into the political mainstream, now taking climate change and modern living into account. </p>
<h2>What restoration means</h2>
<p>Success stories aside, there is a long-standing <a href="https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=enviroethics&id=enviroethics_2012_0034_0001_0067_0097">debate</a> about the value of restoring natural environments. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00201748208601955">Opponents</a> say that we are not really able to return degraded landscapes to their previous states. And that claiming to have done so risks more destruction because it generates the expectation that things can always be put back together. This problem is known as moral hazard. </p>
<p>If restoration is feasible, then what’s to stop mining companies from blowing mountains up and then just “repairing” them? </p>
<p>On the opposite side of the debate are <a href="http://vedegylet.hu/okopolitika/Light%20-%20Ecological_Citizenship.pdf">pragmatists</a>, who believe restoration efforts to more good than harm. They’re not unconcerned about moral hazard, nor do they assert that humans are able to recover landscapes to exactly as they once were. </p>
<p>But, they say, if we can make terrible situations better for people and nature alike, why not try?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold/">Aldo Leopold</a> is a towering figure in this camp. His 1949 <a href="https://www.aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold/sand-county-almanac/">Sand County Almanac</a>, an account of the now famous “land ethic” that urges people to reconnect with nature, is one of the cornerstones of the environmental movement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176119/original/file-20170628-12666-1qs0t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leopold’s trips to the Rio Gavilan region of the northern Sierra Madre in 1936 and 1937 helped to shape his thinking about land health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/9hS1XD">US Forest Service</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1930s, he led the world’s first restoration project, the <a href="https://arboretum.wisc.edu">University of Wisconsin Arboretum</a>, which established the basis of modern restoration ecology: returning degraded environments to their pre-disturbance states. </p>
<p>The Wisconsin project aims to recreate the pre-colonial environment once present south of lakes Mendota and Wingra, restoring prairie, savanna, forest and wetlands. </p>
<p>Though the aim of turning back the clock remains, environmentalists think about restoration in other ways, too. Given the rapid advance of climate change, it might not be possible to make landscapes as good as new (how would one tackle, say, the melting Arctic ice fields?), a goal that was, in any case, always complicated by the inherent dynamism of nature. </p>
<p>In this framing, partly theorised by William Jordan in his 2003 book <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520272705">Sunflower Forest</a>, the historic condition of a natural environment is more a guideline than goal. Instead of restoring landscapes to a prior state, then, efforts should focus on changing our exploitative, destructive relationship with nature. </p>
<p>Increasingly, what restoration aims to heal today is the human–nature divide. </p>
<h2>Our landscapes, ourselves</h2>
<p>This is the view taken by the <a href="http://www.bronxriver.org">Bronx River Alliance</a>, a not-for-profit organisation that has been engaged in restoring the Bronx River for the better part of a decade. </p>
<p>After centuries of being used as a dumping ground for industrial and residential waste, the river can never be returned to its pre-colonial state, replete with thick forest along its banks. Nor can we simply wish away the Kensico dam or the Cross-Bronx Expressway.</p>
<p>But it is possible to make the Bronx River healthy. The Alliance has learned that the key to doing this effectively is local involvement: to heal the river and keep it that way, it must become meaningful in people’s lives. </p>
<p>And the surest way for people to feel that they have a stake in something is by acting on its behalf. From West Farms and Hunts Point to Norwood and Williamsbridge, a network of Bronx volunteers engages in outreach and education, monitors the river’s vitals and helps restock <a href="http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2017/04/20/bronx-river-stocks-up-on-new-fish.html">it with fish</a>. </p>
<p>Some 7,000 kilometres away, in the <a href="https://www.rewildingeurope.com/areas/southern-carpathians/">Southern Carpathian</a> mountains in the Western Romanian commune of Armeniș, <a href="http://www.wwf.ro">the World Wildlife Fund Romania</a> and <a href="https://www.rewildingeurope.com">Rewilding Europe</a> have been engaged in an effort to bring the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bison">European bison</a> back to its historic range. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176118/original/file-20170628-12666-1xpcnqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Home on the range.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Wisent.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The biggest land mammal of Europe was barely saved from oblivion after the second world war. And today’s population descends from the gene pool of just 12 individuals.</p>
<p>The return of this magnificent animal would help manage the mosaic environment of these mountains. Without big grazers like the bison, the open pastures that many animals depend on risk being taken over by trees. </p>
<p>Rather than simply sticking dozens of captive-bred animals in the Carpathian woods, the program has involved the local community at every step. It was Armenis villagers who built the fence that surrounds the reintroduction area, and Armenis villagers who protect the bison as park rangers. </p>
<p>The first reintroduction took place in 2014 when 17 animals were released into the forest. It was blessed by the local Orthodox Christian priest, and the community gathered by the hundreds to witness it. The association trying to turn the animals into an economic opportunity is also made up of locals. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"858004192572649474"}"></div></p>
<h2>Man vs nature</h2>
<p>These are refreshing stories. Normally, the history of human engagement with the natural environment is a laundry list of failures and destruction: another species <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/g201/recently-extinct-animals-list-470209/?">gone extinct</a>, another precious swathe of land destroyed. </p>
<p>Ecological restoration projects like those underway in the Bronx and Armenis have the potential to reverse this trend, restoring not just nature but also humanity’s relationship with it. </p>
<p>By directly engaging in the act of restoration, people can come to understand themselves as animals who also live on and benefit from the land. Beyond the eco-centric arguments for nature’s intrinsic value, there is evidence that nature is <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/01/call-to-wild/">good for our psychic health</a>, relaxing us and improving the quality of our thinking.</p>
<p>If communities around the world follow in New York and Romania’s footsteps – supported by public funds thus making government a stakeholder in restoration projects – the wonder of nature may just outlast this century. That would be good for Earth, and for humanity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mihnea Tanasescu receives funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). </span></em></p>We can’t return degraded landscapes to their original state but we can change the way people relate to their local environments.Mihnea Tanasescu, Research Fellow, Environmental Political Theory, Vrije Universiteit BrusselLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672312016-10-18T19:13:25Z2016-10-18T19:13:25ZHow we discovered the ‘Higgs bison’, hiding in plain sight in ancient cave art<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142141/original/image-20161018-16156-a1vduu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cave artists knew about the elusive bison some 17,000 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">D. Viat/Tourismeoccitanie/Flickr.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than 30,000 years ago, early cave artists in what is now southwestern France ventured deep underground into limestone caves, where they painted elaborate and detailed frescoes of the huge animals that dominated their lives. The accuracy of the depictions was remarkable – far better than most of us could manage crouched under a sloping damp wall under the flickering light cast by flaming bundles of vegetation and fat.</p>
<p>The paintings record a world of cave lions, mammoth, bison and horses, which we are only just beginning to unravel using the combined technologies of ancient DNA and radiocarbon dating. The results show that despite studying cave art for hundreds of years, we have been blind to some of the important stories the artists were telling. </p>
<p>Our <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/NCOMMS13158">research</a> is a case in point. We have used ancient DNA from fossil bones to deduce the existence of a newly discovered bison species – only to discover that it was already recorded on the walls of caves across Europe, such as in Niaux Cave in southwestern France 17,000 years ago.</p>
<h2>DNA detective story</h2>
<p>In 1999, we began studying DNA from ancient bison bones found across the northern hemisphere, where Steppe bison had ranged from modern-day Britain to Mexico during the late Ice Age. Our aim was to study the impacts of climate change on animal populations, and sure enough we quickly found that in North America, populations of bison collapsed dramatically around the Last Glacial Maximum (between about 18,000 and 21,000 years ago). </p>
<p>This was well before humans arrived in North America, and it was the first clear demonstration of the key role played by climate change in the extinctions of bison, along with a range of other large species collectively known as “megafauna”. </p>
<p>We have since expanded this study into South America, to reveal that rapid warming events were the critical factor <a href="https://theconversation.com/dna-evidence-proves-climate-change-killed-off-prehistoric-megafauna-45080">in the demise of many megafaunal species</a>, often with an important finishing touch applied by <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-climate-change-unleashed-humans-upon-south-americas-megabeasts/487502/">human hunters</a>.</p>
<p>In Europe, however, our early studies of ancient bison DNA were perplexing. By studying mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited exclusively through the maternal line, we realised that many of the bones were clearly not from Steppe bison, although this was the only species thought to have been in Europe before 10,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Instead, we realised we were looking at something novel: a species distantly related to today’s cattle and to the modern European bison, or wisent - which survives in a few protected forests in Europe, particularly <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/33">Białowieża Forest between Poland and Belarus</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142131/original/image-20161018-16145-1rann4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Modern European bison (or wisent) in Białowieża Forest, Poland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rafał Kowalczyk</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The little-known wisent is remarkable – the largest native species in Europe, but with a fossil record that goes back only 10,000 years. It almost became extinct after World War I following the collapse of hunting protections enforced by Polish and Russian royalty. Indeed, modern herds are descended from just 12 individuals, including one bull from the Caucasus, where the last wild wisent was shot in 1927.</p>
<p>Since the DNA from our ancient bones was neither Steppe bison nor wisent, we appeared to have found a new species - or had we? We started referring to it as the “Higgs bison”, because – just like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-physics-goes-to-discovery-of-the-higgs-boson-19014">elusive Higgs boson</a> which physicists spent decades tracking down – we had surmised the existence of something without knowing what it looked like. </p>
<h2>On the trail</h2>
<p>The first thing we needed to do was to confirm our mitochondrial DNA results with nuclear DNA, which is harder to retrieve from ancient bones but records all aspects of ancestry, rather than just maternal inheritance. </p>
<p>The nuclear DNA showed our Higgs bison was a hybrid – a cross between a female <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs">Aurochs</a>, the extinct wild ancestor of modern cattle, and a male Steppe bison. We dated this hybridisation to more than 120,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Interestingly, this ancestry was the same for modern European bison, and even though the mitochondial DNA looked different (probably due to the recent population bottleneck), the Higgs bison was revealed as the ancestor of the wisent.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2IYEDP3wO5k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Describing the search for the missing bison.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We still don’t know where or why the original hybridisation occurred, but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/05/23/love-in-the-time-of-climate-change-grizzlies-and-polar-bears-are-now-mating/">recent breeding between polar bears and brown bears in response to climate-induced range contractions</a> give us a clue that climate change might have been involved. </p>
<p>Male offspring of the Aurochs/Steppe bison union were sterile, as is common for mammal hybrids. As a result, several generations of females back-crossed with Steppe bison males (maybe even the same bull), resulting in a genetic ancestry of about 10% Aurochs and 90% Steppe bison. </p>
<p>After this initial interchange with the parental species, the Higgs bison went solo and never looked back - surviving the next 120,000 years, the arrival of modern humans, the megafaunal extinctions, World War I and the Communist revolution along the way. (If there ever needs to be an animal symbol of European history, we have a winner!). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142132/original/image-20161018-16145-1dv5ehx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Genetics and cave art reveal the assymetric hybridisation between female aurochs and male Steppe bison. Male hybrid offspring are sterile, and female offspring backbred with Steppe Bison for several generations - possibly the same bull.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But though we now knew that the Higgs bison went on to become the wisent, we hadn’t actually tracked down any more records of the Higgs bison itself. So we asked our colleagues in Europe whether anyone had noticed any strange bison in the records. Two groups said yes. </p>
<p>Dutch colleagues reported that among the many Steppe bison and Aurochs bones dredged from the North Sea they had noticed another, less common, smaller animal. Meanwhile, French cave art researchers replied that they had noticed that among the cave drawings were two distinct forms of bison: a wedge-shaped one with big horns, rather like a modern American bison; and a more evenly shaped animal with smaller horns, like a modern wisent. </p>
<p>This is where the story comes full circle. Radiocarbon dating of the artworks showed that the wedge-shaped form was drawn when Steppe bison were present on the landscape (around 18,000 years ago), while the small-horned version was drawn when our new species dominated Europe (after 17,000 years ago). Each species appears to have dominated Europe for long periods of time, alternating in response to major climate changes. </p>
<p>Overall, this investigation has thrown up many surprises. Apparently, mammals can form new species by hybridisation, even if only rarely. It also shows that despite the huge bison fossil record, and helpful drawings of both species displayed on cave walls, it took us until now to get the story straight.</p>
<p>How many other species are still hiding in plain sight, helpfully catalogued by prehistoric cave artists?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67231/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Cooper receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Soubrier received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>DNA analysis suggests that a newly discovered species of bison roamed Europe some 17,000 years ago - as prehistoric cave artists were trying to tell us all along.Alan Cooper, Director, Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, University of AdelaideJulien Soubrier, Researcher in paleogenomics, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/552562016-02-24T11:02:13Z2016-02-24T11:02:13ZGive beavers permanent residence – we’d be dam stupid not to<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112588/original/image-20160223-16441-1tw1y1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are you a beaver believer?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=eurasian%20beaver&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=178979297">Sokolov Alexey</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Beavers have recently made a tentative return to Britain. Scotland has led the way, with an official trial population <a href="http://www.scottishbeavers.org.uk/beaver-facts/beaver-trial-faqs/how-many-beavers-have-been-released-and-what-has-happened-to-them/">in Knapdale</a>, a remote area of lochs and forest in the west of the country; and another <a href="http://www.snh.gov.uk/publications-data-and-research/publications/search-the-catalogue/publication-detail/?id=1961">in Tayside</a> to the east, suspected to come from private-collection escapees and unlicensed releases. Further south, a small feral population <a href="http://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/devons-wild-beavers-appeal/">in Devon</a> in south-west England is currently being tolerated by officialdom and <a href="http://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/devons-wild-beavers/">admired locally</a>, while there are also plans for a trial <a href="http://www.welshbeaverproject.org/home/">in mid-Wales</a>.</p>
<p>Should we let these beavers take up permanent residence? The Scottish government has first refusal. It is overdue to make a decision on the back of five years of <a href="http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/beavers/beaver-trial-monitoring-reports/">scientific monitoring</a> and <a href="http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/beavers/beavers-in-scotland/">other evidence</a>. While conservationists wait with bated breath, we think there’s only one sensible choice – beavers should be allowed back.</p>
<p>The EU’s <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/habitatsdirective/index_en.htm">Habitats and Species Directive</a> has been the cornerstone of conservation policy in Britain for the last 30 years. It actively encourages member states to consider reintroducing formerly native animals. The Eurasian beaver is a good candidate, having dwindled in mainland Europe to a handful of small isolated populations by the late 19th century. Thanks to the directive, it is now re-established across most of its former range, making Britain something of a laggard. The beaver became extinct here 400 years ago. In fact, Knapdale represents the first legal attempt to reintroduce an extinct native mammal to the country. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bxqxJe6A0gY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Beaver benefits</h2>
<p>None of this is about nostalgia. Beavers are often referred to as “ecosystem engineers” and herein lies much of the reasoning and controversy behind their reintroduction. There is extensive evidence from <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.2437/abstract">Europe</a> and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00442-002-0929-1">North America</a> that wetlands created by beaver dams benefit everything from water plants, dragonflies and amphibians to fish and ducks to song birds and bats. In Knapdale, <a href="http://www.snh.gov.uk/publications-data-and-research/publications/search-the-catalogue/publication-detail/?id=2187">damming by beavers transformed</a> a small pond into a wetland of a type and complexity probably unseen in Britain for centuries. </p>
<p>Beavers can also restore habitats without the need for a bulldozer or planning permission. On the Bamff estate on Tayside, we <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304377014000175">found that</a> grazing by beavers trebled the number of wetland plants over a nine-year period. Where raised water levels saturated a meadow thanks to damming of ditches, the number of plant species <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/fwb.12721/full">increased by</a> 49% and the multitude of habitats created increased the total diversity of aquatic invertebrates by almost 30%. Indeed the benefits were even further reaching. We found that the beaver dams also <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/fwb.12721/full">acted as a sink</a> for agricultural pollutants, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/16/beavers-blamed-flash-floods-scotland-control-flooding-study">may also help</a> to reduce the risk of flooding. Individually these findings are not that surprising, though it is unusual to demonstrate them all in parallel.</p>
<p>So it’s a no-brainer? While the Scottish public are <a href="http://www.snh.gov.uk/publications-data-and-research/publications/search-the-catalogue/publication-detail/?id=1019">broadly supportive</a> of reintroducing these dog-sized, rather retiring herbivores, farmers, foresters and some anglers are less keen. Beavers get accused of damaging farm crops and commercial plantations through feeding, tree-felling, blocking streams, causing floods, undermining flood embankments and clogging up fish-spawning gravels. </p>
<p>These concerns are often legitimate and locally significant, and need to be addressed. Yet there are <a href="http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/45003">tried and tested ways</a> of mitigating beaver impacts borrowed from the US and Germany that have already been trialled in Scotland, including live-trapping, electric fencing and so-called “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx6s4OQRfSk">beaver deceivers</a>” for managing pond levels. At the same time, beavers have been wrongly <a href="http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/perth-kinross/scientists-say-beavers-can-help-fight-floods-1.924693">held responsible</a> for some high-profile flooding incidents and there remains a widely held but entirely mistaken belief among some anglers that they eat fish. In fact, the most recent analysis in Scotland <a href="http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/commissioned_reports/349.pdf">suggests that</a> beavers generally have a positive impact on the likes of trout. </p>
<p>The reality is that beavers, people and fish have co-existed for thousands of years. There is no reason why in principle this should not continue, even if beavers change the landscape and the landscape itself has changed in their absence. The successful reintroduction and effective management of beavers in central Europe testifies to their adaptability. Beavers bring multiple environmental benefits and the risk of local but manageable disruption shouldn’t eclipse these.</p>
<h2>Bigger than beavers?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112712/original/image-20160224-16464-1fnvd0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Take beaver get lynx?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=lynx&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=345544400">Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In some senses the “beaver question” is a metaphor for the much bigger question of what sort of environment we want in Britain in future. Beavers are potentially at the vanguard of a wider movement <a href="https://theconversation.com/rewilding-isnt-about-nostalgia-exciting-new-worlds-are-possible-44854">called rewilding</a> – transforming landscapes through everything from less intensive farming to reintroducing keystone species. Saying yes to beavers doesn’t mean opening the floodgates to all supposedly desirable species from bison to lynx, but it recognises that we can cope with changing how we run our land, and that the alternatives might be better. On the other hand, saying no to beavers would shut the door on any bigger ambitions, perhaps for decades. </p>
<p>This is also not about going back to the Stone Age – indeed taking land out of production might require more intensive farming elsewhere to address concerns about food security. Instead of imposing rewilding, we must seek the cooperation of landowners. We might incentivise this with subsidies to recognise the ecosystem services that species like beavers provide, while compensating inconvenienced landowners. And as well as mitigating against the impacts that reintroduced creatures can cause, we’ll need to think more about the wider risk of further divorcing people from nature by creating wilderness areas. </p>
<p>But be all that as it may, the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. When it comes to conservation, we have lacked ambition for too long. Saying yes to reintroducing beavers is the sort of bold and forward-looking move that would resurrect the UK’s conservation credentials.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Willby receives funding from Scottish Natural Heritage and Natural Environment Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Law receives funding from Scottish Natural Heritage and Natural Environment Research Council</span></em></p>The case for why this dog-sized rather laid-back herbivore should be reintroduced to the UK.Nigel Willby, Reader in Freshwater Ecology, University of StirlingAlan Law, Post-doctoral Researcher, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.