"This is the best book I've read about American bison and their habitat. It is vivid, concise, witty, erudite, first-hand, and up-to-date. Most important, it argues convincingly that the only way to assure survival of bison and their habitat in the wild is to establish a Great Plains National Park at least 5,000 square miles in extent."—David Rains Wallace, author of The Bonehunter's Revenge: Dinosaurs, Greed, and the Great Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age "Dr. Lott's scholarship is strong and thorough. American Bison presents an extensive, state-of-the-art review of key points of American bison that are unaddressed or under-addressed by previous books. Moreover, it does it in a popularized, often narrative form that makes the material comprehensible to the educated lay reader as well as to the bison scholar."—James H. Shaw, Department of Zoology, Oklahoma State University
Offers a hopeful view of threatened species, grounded in history and science Addresses current conservation trends: wildlife corridors, prairie restoration, cultural restoration for the American Indian community Return of the Bison is the story of how this symbol of the American West was once almost lost to history and of the continuing journey to bring bison back from the brink. Author and naturalist Roger Di Silvestro explores the complex history of the bison’s decimation and how a rising awareness of their possible extinction formed the roots of many modern wildlife conservation approaches. Weaving in natural history and fascinating historical context featuring personalities such as Teddy Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and William T. Hornaday, Di Silvestro traces the decades it took to begin to save the bison, often with little hope and plagued by discouraging setbacks. Di Silvestro explores the key role in the story of America’s Indigenous people, whose fate was intertwined with the bison’s and whose conservation work is important not only for the animal’s recovery but also for their own cultural renewal. Di Silvestro also examines the plight of European bison and the latest challenges facing the species in the US: Are the bison doomed to be treated like cattle, fenced and contained? Or will they be listed as an endangered species, requiring us to treat them like the wild animals they are?
In a clearing by the forest, a little girl befriends a bison. Each winter they meet, sit by the fire, and share stories or simply enjoy the silence together until it is time for the bison to rejoin his herd in the spring. Their bond deepens as they grow older and the years go by, but one winter her bison does not return. After searching for him in the woods, the little girl, now a grown-up, comes to understand that though her bison is gone, he will also always be with her. Gaya Wisniewski's evocative charcoal-and-ink illustrations, enriched by the gradual addition of blue watercolor, masterfully convey this tender, affecting story of friendship and understanding the passage of time.
To appreciate the plight of endangered species, readers are asked to consider the history of the American bison. From dominating the plains to a swift decline to the brink of extinction, the stately American bison epitomizes the crisis of habitat loss for wildlife. Delving into the shameful policies that nearly led to this creature s extermination, this book illuminates the history of the species with a helpful timeline, informative sidebars, and captivating photographs. The book reveals the efforts that have restored the bison to sustainable numbers and educates readers about the value of conservation and the critical role this magnificent animal plays in its ecosystem.
This history chronicles the 19th century plan to reintroduce wild bison into Western Montana and the rise of Roosevelt’s conservation movement. In the late 1800s, the rapid depletion of the American bison population prompted calls for the preservation of wildlife and wild lands in North America. Following a legendary hunt for the last wild bison in central Montana, Dr. William Hornady sought to immortalize the West's most iconic species. Activists like Theodore Roosevelt rose to the call, initiating a restoration plan that seemed almost incomprehensible in that era. This thoroughly researched history follows the ambitious project from the first animals bred at the Bronx Zoo to today's National Bison Range. Glenn Plumb, a former chief wildlife biologist for the National Park Service, and Keith Aune, the former Wildlife Conservation Society director of bison programs, demonstrate how the success of bison repopulation bolstered Roosevelt's broader conservation efforts.
From the host of the Travel Channel’s “The Wild Within.” A hunt for the American buffalo—an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination. In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds—there’s only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years’ worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo’s place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness. American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella’s hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World’s earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a “bone charcoal” plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel. Rinella’s erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.
