Beginning in the early 1800s, the American bison, our national mammal, was hunted to near extinction, with fewer than a thousand remaining by the end of the century. Bison, America’s biggest land-dwelling mammal, helps in the balance and maintenance of a healthy ecosystem, as well as the creation of habitat for a variety of species, […]
Tag: American Bison
Decline of threatened bird highlights planning importance of bison releases
The story of the American bison is both tragic and uplifting. Once dappling the prairies of North America in the tens of millions, hunting winnowed the number to perhaps a thousand survivors by the end of the 19th century. Nearly wiping out the continent’s largest surviving land animal was a bloody stain on the century-old […]
For Bison Day 2021, conservation and reconciliation through buffalo eyes (commentary)
Humanity is living through four interrelated global crises: biodiversity, climate, pandemic, and social justice. Because the nature and scale of threats to the planet and all its life forms is so pernicious and unprecedented, these crises often seem difficult for scientists, conservationists, and political leaders to fully grasp, let alone take concrete steps toward systemic […]
POLL: Should bison be culled in Yellowstone National Park?
Yellowstone National Park’s annual culling of the last wild herd of bison, or buffalo, in the United States has been controversial since it began in 2000, and now it has prompted a First Amendment battle between National Park Service officials and reporters determined to document the grim spectacle. The U.S. National Park Service originally proposed […]
The triumph of the bison: Europe’s biggest animal bounces back a century after vanishing
We’d been hiking through deep snow all day with the mercury well below zero, not an uncommon occurrence during winter in eastern Poland. Still I was sweating, covered in several layers and walking with greater strides than I was used to. We stopped once for lunch, taking our repast on a snow-covered log, eating our […]
Three Strikes You’re out in the Old… Great… Plains!
The first strike against the Great Plains in recorded times was the decimation of the American bison in the 19th Century. The second strike was not from a pitch, but rather the plow and the resulting widespread conversion of native grasslands to crops. The third strike, being delivered now, is the massive drilling and fracking […]
Rare Art Works by John James Audubon at Auction on December 5th Part V
A rare collection of 82 original, hand-colored engravings of birds and quadrupeds by John James Audubon will come under the hammer in New York on 5th December 2012. “The Birds of America” was published in London between 1827 and 1838 by Robert Havell. Although some items will be purchased by art galleries for public display, […]