Return of the Bison

July 3, 2023
In this informative history, nature journalist Di Silvestro (Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands) chronicles efforts to protect bison in the American West from the 1880s to the present. The author begins with an account of how naturalist George Bird Grinnell befriended Theodore Roosevelt, who had recently published his first book about hunting big game on the American prairie, and persuaded him to take up the cause of conservation, leading the two to form the Boone and Crockett Club. The group notched such victories as the National Park Protective Act of 1894, which implemented steep penalties for hunting bison—which numbered fewer than 1,000 in the U.S.—in Yellowstone National Park. The federal government became more involved in the ensuing decades, creating the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 and enlisting biologists to study what the bison’s habitat had been like before European colonization so that the parks might be managed to more closely resemble their pre-Columbian days. Private entities played a major role in the second half of the 20th century, according to Di Silvestro, who notes that CNN founder Ted Turner keeps 45,000 bison on his 14 private ranches, though only some are set aside for conservation—the rest are sold for meat. The overview of bison conservation is competent, but the matter-of-fact style can feel a bit dry. The result is a serviceable history of how bison bounced back from the brink of extinction.

August 1, 2023

Di Silvestro (Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands) brings his outlook as a historian of the Great Plains and writer for conservation publications to the story of the calamitous decline and troubled restoration of bison. The seemingly infinite herds that grazed the prairies of North America were nearly wiped out in the late 19th century. That's due to sport and trophy hunting, habitat conversion to ranching for agriculture, and a military policy to remove a keystone of Indigenous peoples' cultures and livelihood. Bison were protected first by those alarmed at their imminent extinction and then by the government's establishment of national parks and refuges. By the early 20th century, most existed in captivity in scattered commercial herds. Today, even after efforts from coalitions of government, Indigenous, and conservation groups to restore wild populations of bison, most herds remain confined to small habitats by real or legislative boundaries, their numbers too small to be independently sustainable, and their susceptibility to diseases, disasters, and domestication increased. The book includes an index, bibliography, and lists of conservation organizations and sites where wild bison can be seen. VERDICT A cautiously optimistic tale of recovery for historians and a call to action for nature lovers.--Wade Lee-Smith

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2023
Nature author Di Silvestro delivers a status report on the bison, or buffalo (he uses the terms interchangeably), that is both obscenely tragic and flecked with optimism. While some 60 million bison roamed the U.S. plains in the eighteenth century, today there are only 20,000 in conservation herds and 420,000 in commercial herds. Relating heroic efforts to save the species from extinction dating back to the late 1800s, Di Silvestro cites many challenges, among them continued pressures on free-range habitat, past interbreeding with cattle that has tainted some members' DNA, and a patchwork of herds--apart from those of Yellowstone National Park and a handful of other reserves--that are so small and isolated that diversity is hard to achieve. Yet successes continue. The author does yeoman's service in detailing the painstaking efforts over the past century by individuals, nonprofits, and federal and state governments to return the animal to its critical keystone position on the American plains. He also covers restoration efforts in Canada, Mexico, and Europe. All in all, an excellent account.

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