American Prairie Reserve’s mission to create a reserve of more
than three million acres represents one of the largest
conservation projects in the United States today. The size of
the project is hard to grasp – even a small piece of the 274,000
acres that currently comprise the Reserve seems like an endless
“sea of grass” to both first-time and seasoned visitors.
However, after ten weeks of research on historical wildlife
populations of Montana’s glaciated plains, I have become
increasingly convinced that APR’s vision is necessary. If we
want to understand the behavior and ecology of grassland
species, we need to think big. America’s iconic species – bison,
pronghorn, elk, wolves, grizzly bears – evolved over tens of
thousands of years on a wide-open continent. Over this long
period of time, these species became well adapted to
environmental “stochasticity,” the highly dynamic and
unpredictable nature of their habitat. In fact, the prairie is
one of the most dynamic ecosystems in the world. Settlers came
to M