2024 June 27 Bison: Thinking Big about Ecology

Possibly to distract myself from the two root canals I’m having done today, I have been obsessed with the thought of regenerating soil through reintroduction of American Bison. Bison have been on my mind for a little while now. They are the largest modern American land mammal, and I have NEVER seen a wild one. I know our grasslands kept America’s soils healthy. I know native ruminants had everything to do with that. I know grass species grow better when picked at. I know America’s beef production is atrocious for the environment at the pace it’s going…

I’m looking at my city backyard and wondering how I can get a grassland going. How can I, a pescatarian, support Bison reintroduction? This is what actually kept me up last night.

Now I’m reading an audiobook about Regenerative Grazing. I’m also reading Bison Bellows from the National Park Service. 

Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World: How Regenerative Grazing Can Restore Soils and Stabilize the Climate by Ridge Shinn and Lynne Pledger

We need to reintroduce American Bison and the ecology surrounding them. We need grasslands. We need forests. We need wetlands. We need to live with the land, not to make it into manicured ecological nightmares. We need indigenous knowledge. 

Imagine how North America could look if the European settlers listened and learned from the people who lived here. I’d love to see what these few hundred years would have developed into modern day.

American Bison…