In “Back from the Collapse: American Prairie and the Restoration of Great Plains Wildlife,” Curtis H. Freese, ecologist and cofounder of the nonprofit foundation American Prairie describes the recent destruction of the Great Plains ecosystem due to Euro-American hunting, farming and cattle grazing and, in a response to this destruction, the founding of American Prairie, the mission of which is to restore wildlife to the Great Plains. Created in 2002, one of American Prairie’s goals is to assemble land around the core of an already protected area in Montana, the 1.1-million acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge which Freese calls the American Prairie-Russell Refuge. American Prairie holds 460,800 acres “of deeded and leased public lands… constituting the region’s largest transition from livestock driven management to biodiversity driven management since the establishment of the C.M. Russell Refuge.”
“Back from the Collapse” focuses on the vast Great Plains wildlife population before Euro-American settlement and then documents the extinction or near-extinction of twenty-four species brought on by settlement. Freese devotes chapters to the American beaver, river otter, ungulates (large mammals with hooves), carnivores, the Rocky Mountain locust, black-tailed prairie dog, black-footed ferret, along with the pallid sturgeon and grassland birds. By giving us vivid descriptions of the rich, interconnected life that made up Great Plains biodiversity, Freese convinces us that every living creature that was once part of the whole is required in the restoration of this biodiverse ecosystem.
In a chapter that focuses on the American beaver, Freese explains that it is a keystone animal due to its “central role in forging the structure and species diversity of the Great Plains streams and riparian areas that influence the wildlife of the surrounding grasslands.” By building dams and digging bank dens for shelter, they change their environment by creating “a stair-step profile of… flowing water and… still water habitats” and so provide the opportunity for a wide variety of plants and animals to flourish. The overflow of their dams generates marshes (wetlands), and allows for the growth of willows, cottonwoods and a “woody habitat where otherwise none would exist.” These habitats support birds, bats, white-tailed deer, bobcats and other mammals. In addition, beavers served as prey for predatory animals such as wolves.
What caused the beaver population collapse? The intense hunting of the American beaver for its fur in the early nineteenth century; the building of dams along the Missouri River which includes the 245,000-acre Fort Peck Reservoir; the killing of beavers by locals who considered them pests to the agricultural and cattle business; and the huge subsidies offered to agribusinesses to farm on uncultivated land. Freese writes that to restore the beaver within a biodiverse ecosystem requires a change in the flow of the dams built on the Missouri River, the control of invasive plants, and the elimination of cattle grazing along streams. He then describes a successful reintroduction of the beaver by American Prairie. In 2009 they acquired an area known as Dry Fork through which Beaver Creek runs, and on the range replaced cattle with bison. Beavers returned and their dams created marshes and wet meadows—the beginning of an ecosystem.
Freese also makes the convincing argument that large areas of land of up to a million acres each are needed “to conserve the full sweep of a region’s biodiversity.” This could be considered a key goal in American Prairie’s mission to restore Great Plains wildlife. However, Freese also makes clear that obstacles such as domestic cattle grazing, along with agriculture, as well as the political forces behind ranchers and agri-business remain obstacles to success.
In “Back from the Collapse: American Prairie and the Restoration of Great Plains Wildlife,” Freese convinces us that the reintroduction of wildlife in the Great Plains is necessary and good by giving us the history of our planet earth and the Great Plains, by describing a thriving ecosystem that was destroyed by hunting, ranching and farming, and by recounting American Prairie’s restoration successes. Ideally, the intellectually rigorous “Back from the Collapse” will become an integral part of the movement to create public support and enthusiasm for the restoration of wildlife to the Great Plains which American Prairie champions and which is vital to our planet’s survival in this era of devastating climate change.
“Back from the Collapse, American Prairie and the Restoration of Great Plains Wildlife” By Curtis H. Freese University of Nebraska Press, 376 pages
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