conservation Archives - Page 3 of 8

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

What’s Good For Lemurs is Good for the Planet

2-minute read

One of our favorite things to do here at FWP is to help restore forests that cool the planet, support the lives and livelihoods of people, and provide food and habitat for endangered wildlife. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, every month, we have new opportunities to contribute to planting projects that minimize biodiversity loss and protect and restore some of the most threatened wild places on Earth—known in science speak as biodiversity hotspots. There are currently 36 recognized hotspots, home to 2 billion people and teeming with plants, animals and other living organisms that support the functioning of ecosystems that we all depend upon for survival.

About 8,716 miles from where we sit in NYC, give or take a few blocks, is the island country of Madagascar, one of the most biodiverse of all hotspots and a critical priority for nature conservation. Approximately 92% of Madagascar’s mammals, 89% of its plant life, and 95% of reptiles don’t exist anywhere else in the natural world.

In addition to some extraordinary creatures you may have never heard of, like tomato frogs, aye-ayes, and fossas, one of the island’s most familiar and iconic animals is the lemur. Of 101 lemur species, 96% are currently at risk of extinction. Not only do lemurs depend on forests, but forests also benefit from lemurs’ seed dispersal that helps to maintain habitats that other rare species rely on for food, cover, and toing and froing. Like other keystone species globally, including bees, sea otters, and manatees, lemurs are the canaries in the coal mine, their presence or absence is a sign of the health of their native ecosystem.

With only 10% of their natural habitat remaining due to deforestation, overharvesting, and climate change impacts, even the most dedicated lemurs would have a hard time dispersing enough seeds to keep rapidly dwindling forests intact. To give the pop-eyed primates a helping hand, we’re contributing to Madagascar’s reforestation with the Eden Projects. Since 2019, Eden has successfully planted over 10 million mangrove and flowering trees with Tree-Nation in northwest Madagascar, benefiting both people and wildlife.

Although you may be surprised to learn that what’s good for lemurs is good for the planet, to quote Madagascar’s native peoples, “the forest has been present since the dawn of time and always will be, because if it disappears, life will also disappear.” We couldn’t agree more. That’s why we pitch in with planet cooling, habitat restoring, and community-supporting tree planting projects in biodiversity hotspots around the globe. Here’s the July update:

FWP Monthly Carbon Capture Report
Our total YTD carbon capture across six projects is 1,332 tons. That’s equivalent to greenhouse gas emissions avoided by 57,936 trash bags of waste recycled instead of landfilled, 50,729 lamps switched to LEDs, or 1,480,884 pounds of coal burned.

Rolling on… doesn’t it seem like it’s about time for a playlist? We think so. Happy high summer!

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Lisa S. French August 9, 2022

Healing the Planet: The People Have the Power

1.5-minute read

We hope that you’re thoroughly enjoying the summer roaming season. Being out in the world again and appreciating the astounding beauty of nature serves as a soul-soothing reminder of how critical a hospitable planet is to our well-being. Thanks to a unanimous vote by the United Nations General Assembly as of July 28, your access to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment is no longer just a wishlist item but has now been declared a universal human right.

Did you know that you can play a vital role in maintaining the natural world you love by collaborating with scientists to help address some of our biggest Earthly challenges, like climate change and biodiversity loss?

Now, you may say to yourself, “Self, I am just one person. I can’t make a difference. How can I help with such momentous problems?” Well, you can rev up your big brain and provide your unique and invaluable insights to scientists working to protect and preserve our environment—that’s how. By joining the ranks of millions of citizen scientists around the world, you can participate in advancing the knowledge needed to help maintain the well-being of people, wildlife, and the planet. Does that sound like a plan? Read on…

Every day, new citizen science programs are launched in every corner of the globe, offering opportunities to observe and track species or environmental events that remain invisible to remote monitoring. In many cases, there is no formal training required for participation. All that’s needed is your perceptive peepers and unbridled enthusiasm, and passion for nature. The projects span a vast range of issues, using web platforms and mobile apps to record data.

There’s still a lot of summer left and a lot of options to explore to make an important contribution to healing the Earth. By helping scientists make better and more comprehensive analyses of the state of our home planet, you’ll also improve environmental decision-making that affects the health of local and global communities. Every solution to even seemingly insurmountable problems starts with someone saying, “What is happening here? We should fix this.” So how can we help fix the urgent, closely linked problems of climate change and biodiversity loss? By supporting scientists and working together with people from different backgrounds and abilities to advance the knowledge needed to create a sustainable future for everyone.

Are you in? Great! We’ve pulled together some resources to get you started on your citizen science journey. Pick a project and share what you see:

Scistarter: Find a project by topic or keyword.
Citisci: Create projects, build datasheets, and track your results.
iNaturalist: Explore and share your observations from the natural world.
iSpot: Identify wildlife and share nature with a global community.
GLOBE: Join a global learning and research community to benefit the environment.
Earthwatch: Help tackle urgent environmental challenges through research.
Zooniverse: Contribute to people-powered research.
eMammal: Track wildlife in 110 wildlife projects in 22 countries.
Forestwatcher: Keep tabs on the trees.
Edge of Existence: Help protect some of the most unique and endangered species on the planet.

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Lisa S. French August 1, 2022

A shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) stork standing surrounded by plants and waiting

Say Hello to the Shoebill Stork—If You Dare

2-minute read

If you happened upon a shoebill stork in your travels, your first thought after you stopped shaking in your wading boots would most likely be, “Whoa, that is one super-sized, scarily pre-historic looking bird… dino-bird… bird-o-saur…” Standing five feet tall with a saucer-eyed, do-you-see-how-I-see-you stare and a bone-crusher of a hooked bill, this fearsome swamp dweller is not an escapee from Jurassic Park but a distinctive African wading bird considered one of the most extraordinary feathered creatures on Earth. Let’s dig in to find out what makes the shoebill stork stand out in a flock:

What’s in a Name?
Dubbed Balaeniceps rex, “King Whalehead” or whale-headed stork by British ornithologist John Gould in 1851, the bird was known as abu markub, “father of the shoe” by the Arab people, and schuhschnabel or “shoebill” by the Germans. With a bill shaped like a shoe large enough to hold a human foot, shoebill became the favored moniker. But what kind of shoe? Sneaker? Nope. Stiletto? No. Sandal? Unh-uh. The consensus is that this wading bird’s bill looks like a Dutch clog. Originally grouped with storks, herons, and ibis, scientists have concluded that the shoebill is more closely related to pelicans.

Creature Features
In addition to a powerful 12-inch bill with a piercing nail-like hook on the end, the shoebill has extra-long toes for swamp-stomping and a remarkable eight-foot wingspan.

The Swamp It Calls Home
Found only in the freshwater wetlands of eastern central tropical Africa, the shoebill occupies some of the most inaccessible habitats in the world. The tall, leggy water bird prefers swamps and marshes with lots of reeds and floating vegetation, where it constructs raft-sized nests that can measure up to eight feet across—which, as an aside, is only slightly smaller than a Manhattan studio. Shoebills lay one to three eggs, and it takes about five months for a baby shoebill to mature, leave the nest and stand on its own big bird feet.

Hobbies and Interests
Despite its menacing appearance, the shoebill is no avian warrior. The low-energy, solitary bird spends about 85% of its time standing, preening, and sitting on platforms of vegetation. The sluggish species stands motionless for hours, waiting for a tasty meal to swim by and then collapses on its prey hooked-bill first in a frenzy of wing-flapping. Although the shoebill is capable of flying long distances, it’s not migratory, spends only 0.9% of its time in the air, and only occasionally perches in trees.

Favorite Foods
Most partial to carp and lungfish, the patient fisher-bird is also keen on turtles, water snakes, lizards, and baby crocodiles—also known as the wetlands buffet.

Communication Style
You won’t hear energetic chitter-chattering or soul-stirring swamp songs from the shoebill. The rat-a-tat-tat sound of machine-gun fire it produces is known as bill clattering, and it’s used to both delight lady birds and deter predators. When not on high alert for love or danger, the otherwise quiet bird may offer a gentle nod in greeting. And if you see a shoebill shake its head from side to side, it’s not a judgy sign of disapproval but an attempt to dislodge weedy debris or leftover lungfish.

Shoebill Stressors
Like so many amazing animal species globally, shoebill populations across Africa are declining. Habitat loss, climate change, and illegal capture for the bird trade are taking their toll on the avian wonders. The IUCN estimates that only 3,300 to 5,300 shoebills are left in the wild. As our home planet continues to undergo rapid environmental change, vulnerable animals like the shoebill need all the help they can get to survive. If you’d like to join an international community of people working to create a better world for wondrous wildlife like the shoebill, head on over to Birdlife.org—nature needs more followers!

ICYMI Nature News

Styrofoam Eating Superworms
Move over plastic-eating bacterium, scientists from the University of Queensland have discovered that the larvae of the darkling beetle can survive solely on Styrofoam. Apparently, the little wrigglers prefer a light meal. By all means, dig in!

Turtle-y Not Extinct
Princeton scientists have announced big news for a big tortoise. The Galápagos “fantastic giant tortoise” believed to be extinct for the past 100 years is thankfully still with us. Researchers have located a fifty-year-old female tortoise, which they’ve named Fernanda, and transported her to a rescue and breeding facility for safekeeping. After a half century of keeping herself to herself, we’re glad Fernanda finally came out of her shell.

Polar Bear Work Around
Polar bears in Greenland have come up with a new hunting strategy to compensate for climate change-induced loss of sea ice. It seems these arctic dwellers are smarter than the average bear—although the average bear is smarter than you thought.

You Could Even Say It Glows
Photographer Callie Chee has captured sparkling images of nature’s night lights in a gallery series on bioluminescent lifeforms. Eerily beautiful!

“If Not Now, Then When?”
And the winner of the 2022 Environmental Music Prize is Australian rock artists King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for their call-to-action track If Not Now, Then When? When indeed.

That’s all for now Earthlings. Happy summer solstice. Have a super week!

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Lisa S. French June 20, 2022

Where the Wild Things Are: The Atlantic Forest

2-minute read

Golden lion tamarins, wooly spider monkeys, maned three-toed sloths, red-tailed parrots. These are just a few of the thousands of species of amazing animals that occupy the Atlantic Forest in South America, the second most diverse ecosystem on the planet after the Amazon—and one of the most endangered.

From coastal lowlands to mist-covered mountain ranges, this vitally important biodiversity hotspot that extends from the southeastern coast of Brazil into Argentina and Paraguay once covered 370 million acres—about 3.5 times the land mass of California. Scientists now estimate that the Brazilian acreage of the Atlantic Forest has been reduced to remnants that are roughly only eight percent of its original size. Just eight percent.

Deforestation and fragmentation resulting from land use change, pollution, climate change and invasive species have accelerated the loss of habitat for the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians that make this tropical forest their home, presenting new challenges to survival they may not have the capacity to overcome. Many of the Atlantic Forest’s endangered species, like the spectacular carroty-maned tamarin (pictured above), cannot be found anywhere else in the wild.

With one million species at risk of extinction globally, restoring degraded forest ecosystems that provide food and shelter for native wildlife is a top priority to safeguard biodiversity that supports all of life on Earth.

Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we’re delighted to have connected with the Copaiba Environmentalist Association in Brazil to help plant native trees in the Atlantic Forest and guarantee a sustainable future for one of the last remaining places on Earth where the wild things are.

If you’re looking for an outstanding way to celebrate World Environment Day, you can learn more about the global movement to restore nature and check out active projects at Restor.eco and Rewild.org. Join us!

ICYMI Nature News

Skydiving Salamanders
When you make your home at the top of a 150-foot redwood tree, learning how to safely glide to the ground is an essential skill. Scientists have determined that the wandering salamander has perfected a life-saving parachuting technique to slow its descent when it falls. Who needs wings to fly when you have a twisty tail and torso? Dream big little amphibians, dream big.

The World’s Largest Plant
What’s 4,500 years old and three times the length of Manhattan? A stupendous seagrass located off the coast of Western Australia. Scientists believe the gargantuan marine plant grew from just one seed.

The World’s Oldest Tree
The granddaddy of all trees has been discovered in Chile’s Alerce Costero national park. The ancient Patagonian cypress is estimated to be 5,484 years old. It doesn’t look a day over 5,000 to us.

More and More Monarchs
The eastern monarch population wintering in Mexico’s forests has bounced back by 35%. Hooray for much-needed good nature news!

This Art is for the Birds
Audubon has launched the Birdsong Project, an unprecedented collaboration of more than 220 music and visual artists, actors, and literary figures contributing their creativity to celebrate the joy birds bring to the world. So beautiful. Check it out!

And it’s Moorhen for the Win
In semi-nature-related news, hearty congratulations to E. W. Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Harini Logan whose final correct spelling was a bird word—moorhen for the win. Speed-speller Harini is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious—and yes, we spell-checked.

FWP Monthly Carbon Capture Report
The trees that we planted through Tree-Nation in May will capture and store 555.6 tons of C02. That’s equivalent to 614,721 pounds of coal burned or 1,379,113 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered vehicle. Our suck-it-up stats total to date through the TN platform: 661.2 tons of CO2 stored.

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Lisa S. French June 5, 2022

It’s Earth Day—We’re All In With Tree-Nation

1.5-minute read

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

Rabindranath Tagore

FWP Earth Day Dozen Playlist

If you’re a friend of Favorite World Press, you know we’re tree people. If you’re a first-time visitor—well, hello there, happy to have you—by the way, we’re tree people.

We love trees for their planet-cooling, well-being-enhancing, wildlife-supporting, music-making majesty. And we plant trees and work to protect forests because they provide one of the most effective nature-based solutions to global environmental threats.

Did you know:

31% of the world’s land surface is covered by forests,
33% of the C02 released from burning fossil fuels is absorbed by forests,
75% of the world’s accessible freshwater is provided by forests,
80% of all land-dwelling species rely on forests for their survival,
1.6 billion people rely on forests for food, water, fuel, and jobs,
17% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation.

Hope for the Planet
Because the world’s forests are major planetary players, they need protection to keep them healthy and intact. But every minute of every day, we’re losing the equivalent of 36 football fields in forest cover. To make up for current levels of annual deforestation, we need to plant an additional 10 billion trees a year.

Planting the right trees in the right place is critical to their survival and reaping their full environmental, social, and economic benefits. That’s why we’re proud to announce that in honor of Earth Day, we’re going global and partnering with the proprietary tree-planting platform Tree-Nation.

As we have for the past three-plus years, FWP will be planting one tree for every print and e-book sold from the Frankie and Peaches: Tales of Total Kindness Series. Through our new partnership with Tree-Nation, we’ll be choosing from 300 different tree species in 39 active reforestation projects in 25 countries on six different continents.

To kick-start our campaign, we’re pitching in on projects in the United States, Brazil, Tanzania, Thailand, India, and Madagascar. Each tree that we plant will be assigned a unique URL so we can track its leafy, green contribution to carbon storage, local communities, and biodiversity—it’s the internet of trees.

See how we grow with Tree-Nation here.

Thank you for helping us help them create a life-sustaining planet.

Wishing you a happy, healthy, hopeful Earth Day!

xo Favorite World Press

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Lisa S. French April 22, 2022

Manatees Say What?

1.5-minute read

You might not think that manatees would be a particularly talkative bunch, but according to new research from Florida Atlantic University, the beloved, roly-poly sea mammals have something to say and produce five different, surprisingly high-pitched sounds to say it. Despite their considerable heft, you won’t hear any deep bass bellowing from these gentle giants. Manatee-speak sounds a bit like mouse squeaks on steroids. Have a listen here.

Like other marine animals, how manatees communicate depends on what they are up to in their underwater world. Much the same way the tone of a human voice helps to convey mood, manatee calls provide insight into the motivation and emotional state of the aquatic critters.

So, what is on the minds of manatees as they propel themselves around the shallow waterways of coastal Florida? Here’s a handy-dandy manatee call decoder based on seven years of recorded vocalizations mapped to different behaviors:

Squeaks:
A squeaking manatee is a stressed-out manatee. Close encounters with nets, fishing gear, and boats don’t make for happy sea cows.

High squeaks:
Manatee moms and calves make sure they are always within squeaking distance of one another. High pitched calls signal a baby on board or a calve separated from its mother.

Squeals:
Frolicking manatees are big squealers. Body surfing, barrel rolls, and follow-the-leader qualify as good manatee fun.

Squeak squeals:
A squeak squeal is the sound of a manatee excited about finding food—an “oh, look, seagrass” super-yay.

Chirps:
After a productive day of manatee-ing, these soothing sounds commonly come from manatees at rest.

And why should we care about sea creature communications? Deciphering manatee vocalizations can help us to understand how they interact with each other and their environment, which is critical to keeping them healthily in the swim.

While scientists continue to study the behavior-related songs of Florida manatees, we suspect that if the iconic animals had something to say to humans, it would be along the lines of: “Do you know what happened to our seagrass?” “We eat the seagrass.” “Perhaps you would be kind enough to get us more of the seagrass?” “We thank you in advance!”

As we wrote in June 2021, Florida manatees have been experiencing massive die-offs due to climate change and pollution-related loss of their primary food source. Unfortunately, restoring the health of seagrass beds is a long-term project. In the meantime, wintering adult manatees need about 230 pounds of leafy greens a day to survive, so in January 2022, federal and state wildlife officials embarked on a direct feeding program to help keep the hungry animals afloat. You can see how manatees in the Indian River Lagoon made 160,000 pounds of lettuce disappear here. The squeaky manatee gets the sea salad!

If you’d like to pitch in to protect manatees, whether you’re a local Floridian or just passing through, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has some good ways to help out here.

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Lisa S. French April 8, 2022

Blue Jays on snow in the winter wilderness

Heads Up, Bird People

1.5-minute read

It’s almost here—the 25th annual Great Backyard Bird Count! Wherever you are on the planet, from February 18th through the 21st, the GBBC is your chance to get out and about and let the world know how many of our feathered friends can be found on your patch.

If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare this weekend, you’ll find everything you need to add to the global critter count, courtesy of Audubon, The Cornell Ornithology Lab, Birds Canada, and eBird:

Free Webinar: On Wednesday 16th at 2 pm EST, avian aficionados of all ages and experience levels can get pro tips on identifying creature features and how to do an official count, bird by bird.

How to Participate: You can download a printable checklist to find out who’s who in your area, access the Merlin ID app that covers bird species on seven continents in 12 languages, and find tools to upload your tally to eBird via your mobile or desktop.

Global Live Map: You’ll be able to keep tabs on sightings around the world as birdwatchers upload their observation lists. If you get bird envy when the Southern Hemisphere goes online, we can relate. It’s a bird-a-palooza down there.

In case you need more of an incentive to bird watch your way out of the winter gloom, according to a new study, in addition to being important pollinators, the winged songsters improve our well-being—and the more birds in our environment, the better we feel. So, grab your field glasses, head on out, and give birds and your mood a boost! In anticipation of endorphin elevation, let’s do a practice count together—bird, bird—bird, bird, bird. Don’t you feel better already!

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Lisa S. French February 15, 2022

Banking on Seed Hunters

1.5-minute read

A breath of fresh air, a drink of clean water, a cool patch of shade, a safe home for hatchlings—the planetary perks provided by forests and trees are undeniable. Across the United States, there is a potential to reforest 133 million acres. Planting just half of that acreage by 2040 would require an astronomical 34 billion tree seedlings. Getting from seedling to sapling to reaping full forest benefits requires an essential first ingredient—seeds; and right now, there is a nationwide shortage. As a result of record-breaking fire seasons and climate change-induced drought across the Western states, including Texas, California, Oregon, and Washington, seed banks are almost empty.

To help meet national reforestation goals, our planting partners, American Forests, are launching the Seed Collection Corps to replenish seed banks and ramp up seedling production. By training people how to collect, process, and store native tree seeds, American Forests is making a critical investment in the planet so that forests that nurture the health and well-being of people and wildlife have a fighting chance at survival.

Big bucks for regreening
There’s even more tree-mendous news for 2022. Thanks to the REPLANT Act becoming law, America’s forests will get their fair share of funding: $425 million for post-fire recovery, $200 million for a national seed and seedling strategy, $100 million for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, $1.5 billion for state and private forestry, and $200 million for tribal restoration priorities.

At Favorite World Press, we’re beyond pleased to support national reforestation projects by planting one tree for every print or e-book sold from Frankie and Peaches: Tales of Total Kindness. Thanks so much for reading with us. Thanks so much for planting with us.

And a few quick ease-into-Monday items
According to a new study out of the University of Michigan, there are close to 73,000 tree species on Earth, including about 9,200 yet to be discovered. Who knew? Now you do!

If you need even more green goodness in your life, you can now green your Wordle. Fill in the environment and climate change-related blanks here.

Would you like to soothe yourself with some creature-cam toing and froing? Courtesy of Audubon, you can get a bird’s eye view of a puffin burrow complete with a freshly hatched puffling. They’re a chatty bunch of seabirds!

And one more thing, good people, Plastic-free February kicks off this week. If you’d like to try to cut down your use of the indestructible stuff for one month, you can get tips and support from Clear Community right here. Challenge accepted? Challenge accepted!

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Lisa S. French January 31, 2022

NYC is for the Birds

1.5-minute read

What if New York City, the most densely populated urban area in the United States, could be transformed into a green oasis that’s also a haven for winged wildlife? Can we make more room for nature, so the city is less concrete and more jungle? You bet—think vertical!

There are roughly 36,700 acres of handily sun-facing rooftops in NYC—equivalent to 27,803 football fields or 44 Central Parks. That’s a whole lot of valuable space to create healthy, productive habitat for plants, pollinators, and feathered friends—sky meadows teeming with life—wildflowers, songbirds, butterflies, bees. Greening rooftops would not only make the city a force for nature restoration but would help to preserve wildlife in non-urban areas as well. Connecting fragments of habitat would provide migrating and breeding birds with access to life-sustaining vegetation and food resources where and when they’re needed most.

Researchers from Fordham University investigating the potential for NYC green roofs to attract semi-urban and non-urban birds compared avian visitors to green and conventional roofs in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx during spring migration and summer breeding seasons. They found that birds that typically avoid the Big Apple will make an exception for green roofs that provide the right combination of plants and insects for foraging.

With rapid urbanization and loss of green space, most migratory birds will encounter cityscapes in their travels. Providing rooftop recharging stations planted with bird and insect-friendly vegetation will help increase their odds of survival in a warming world. And green roofs aren’t just for the birds—they also benefit people by cleaning and cooling the air, decreasing noise, and reducing storm runoff. Plus, they’re more lovely to look at. Now that’s a sweet city!

You can check out some inspiring examples of NYC green roofs here and global living architecture projects here. And if you’d like to learn more about what it takes to turn regular old urban rooftops into beautiful life-sustaining habitats, watch this video from NYC Audubon.

Whether you’re urban or rural or somewhere in-between, if you’ve been topping up the winter chow to help out hungry local birds, you can get the inside scoop on the pecking order at the feeder and who comes out on top from Audubon. Here in Manhattan, it’s the doves—always the doves. Update: Be sure to have a look at Carla Rhodes’ wonderful snaps of New York birds getting their fair share—doves on cleanup crew.

Speaking of local birds, congratulations to the 2021 MLS Cup Champions—the New York City FC, aka the Pigeons. Well done and welcome back to your urban habitat!

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Lisa S. French December 14, 2021

The Big Benefits of the Big Love of Bison

1.5-minute read

Do you have a favorite nature spot where you go to feel all of the good feelings—joy, hope, optimism, comfort? Whether your outdoor sanctuary is a lofty mountain peak, a pristine stretch of beach, an enchanted forest, or a wide-open prairie, connecting to nature is broadly acknowledged to improve human well-being. Interestingly, the mood-enhancing benefits of time spent in nature also benefit nature. How so? Well, according to biologists at Colorado State University, the positive emotions that we associate with a specific soul-soothing place on the planet also aid conservation by increasing our inclination to keep the great out there intact. And what is one of the best ways to amplify emotional connections to a particular landscape? Add wildlife.

To better understand what motivates people to care about preserving the natural world, researchers set out to determine if the reintroduction of bison to the Colorado prairie after a 150-year absence would increase visitor attachment to the North American grasslands—one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world. In the 18th century, bison, the largest mammals in North America, roamed grasslands in the tens of millions. By 1889, only 541 remained. Thanks to ongoing restoration efforts, today, there are around 20,000 of the hefty grazers in parks and reserves in the United States and Canada.

So do these iconic animals have a role to play in connecting people to nature and conservation? How do humans feel about bison, anyway? As it turns out, pretty darn good! Surveying visitors to the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in Fort Collins, Colorado, before and two years after the reintroduction of a herd of bison, researchers measured a significant increase in how attached people felt to the conservation area. Soapstone Prairie visitors felt more at home, wanted to visit the area more and a resounding 95% felt that it was more important to protect the space after the high plains drifters returned to their historical home on the range. Bringing back bison had an immediate positive impact on people feeling a connection to conservation. We want to protect what we love, and if the experience of visitors to Soapstone is anything to go by, to know bison is to love them. And that’s good news for the preservation of our grasslands and native wildlife.

If you’d like to experience those big bison feelings for yourself, and you’re up for a winter road trip, you can find a list of all of the places they roam here.

And if you’d like to learn more about ongoing bison restoration projects across the rolling plains, visit American Prairie.

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Lisa S. French December 3, 2021