Showing posts with label species reintroduction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label species reintroduction. Show all posts

December 22, 2016

First Nations Become First Restorationists Part III: An Informal List of Species Reintroduction Projects on Tribal Lands


Over the last few months I have been perusing the internet to find examples to back my claim that there is a somewhat recent and growing phenomenon ( explained in part 1), which I hope keeps growing, of Native American/Indian Reservations using their autonomy to restore missing indigenous species to various habitat around the US. Natives Reintroducing Natives.
This phenomenon happens most often west of the Mississippi River in what we know as the High Plains and West, but it's not limited to there. The Upper Midwest seems to also have a thriving tribal ecology focus, and even the Eastern Cherokee, a little birdie whispered in my ear, are starting to take their tribal areas in Western North Carolina more seriously in terms of holistic management. There might be some elk running around soon.
Here is an informal list of what I have found so far. If you want to learn more about any specific introduction effort, I would use the tribe and species as keywords for an internet search and I bet you find something:
Note: I am trying to collect a list of reintroduction, but there are plenty more programs where there are habitat improvements for endangered, or locally extinct species that might not make the list. My scope might be too narrow, but I started a while ago when it seemed a fun challenge and this list would get really long if I listed every habitat improvement program, as much as I applaud them.


April 13, 2016

First Nations become First Restorationists Part II: A Bison Case Study




In Part One I wrote about how I had noticed that American Indian Tribes were using their tribal autonomy to do species restoration on their reservations all over the central and western part of the Contiguous US. I was surprised because I hadn't seen any mention of it as a phenomenon other than one article in the New York Times. It turns out it has been quietly happening for some 30 years or more.
I meant for this post to be a survey of all that is happening, from black footed ferrets to buffalo, but I got so much info on the buffalo I have decided to make a post just on it, Tribal Buffalo Restoration, and then do another final post on the other species that have been popping up (in the case of Prairie Dogs and Black Footed Ferrets, quite literally) all over the west. So this is part two of a three part series.



Right now is the golden age of the return of the Buffalo.. it's happening all over the west, 120 or so conservation herds and growing, in addition to countless meat herds, and it feels like half of those restorations are on government land, and half are on Reservations, and as I dig, a lot of the groundwork was laid as early as the 80's, and the herds are now in some cases becoming big and viable wild herds.