Today, I am thankful for the concept of conservation.
The Earth is an amazing planet. The natural resources it affords us allows us not only to survive as a species but also to ensure our lives are as comfortable as possible. Nevertheless, we have a profound obligation to protect our surroundings and all it beholds. As humans have occupied nearly every corner of this planet, our slow but steady invasion has resulted in deleterious effects to our climate, the forests and other natural habitats, the oceans and other waterways, and the millions of species that coexist with us. We bear an awesome responsibility to ensure that we are not the death of those entities, which, in turn, might lead to our own demise as a species. The good news is that our negative actions can be reversed, while at the same time, our progress as a species can be maintained.
In the past, I spoke about the preservation of our natural parks. Today, I’d like to share an example of a species that lives on these natural preserves and the story of its resurrection. In the 19th Century, American would fulfill the rallying cry of Manifest Destiny. Hundreds of thousand pioneers travelled west across the plains to occupy the various reaches of this great country at the urging of the government, authors, and even newspaper writers. As Horace Greely, the great editor of the New York Tribune, would attest: “Go West, young man.” Add in the Gold Rush of the mid 19th Century and the birth of a transcontinental railroad system, and before one knew it, our nation had expanded to 48 states across two oceans.
As thousands of Americans travelled in wagons and trains across the plains of the Americans heartland, few things captivated their esprit de corps than the sweeping prairies west of the Mississippi River. On these spacious tracts of land roamed the symbol of its openness, the American bison. Known colloquially to us by the Spanish word ‘buffalo’, this species numbered somewhere in the tens of millions. Most estimates put the number of bison in the mid 19th Century at close to 30 to 60 million. However, as more and more ranches and farms were established, the bison had fewer and fewer places to roam. Sadly, even our own government, led by the US Army, supported a public campaign to eliminate the bison in an effort to control the Native American population. The intrepid spirit and thoughtless disregard by the cowboys in the Wild West also contributed to its near extinction. Finally, the bison’s nutritional value as an abundant source of protein, coupled with bovine disease introduced by the domestication of cattle, would place the species on the brink of elimination.
By the late 1800s, the American bison – the natural symbol of the open prairie – was nearing extinction. A species of close to 50 million had been reduced to just 500 animals, leading many to fear that its time in America was short. Fortunately, conservation efforts began to protect the buffalo in the early 20th Century, In 1905, the American Bison Society was founded by President Theodore Roosevelt and the first director of the Bronx Zoo, William Hornaday. Together, they spearheaded a national campaign to preserve the buffalo. Similar efforts would continue with others public and private organizations joining in. For instance, on this day (July 22) in 1950, American Heritage began a Save the American Bison Campaign to maintain and build the population of buffalo. In due time, the bison numbers would increase. Today, some 30,000 American buffalo roam the wild, and near 500,000 reside in various forms of domestication. Numerous organization continue to create and release conservation herds of over 1,000 or more bison to ensure the species propagation and diversity. Today, the bison population is stable, but it still remains ‘near threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
In short, the American bison remains a stalwart symbol of America’s rambunctious spirit, but it is also a poignant reminder of our destructive power. I’m grateful for all the work the numerous conservation groups do to protect its existence so my grandchildren, and their grandchildren, might one day continue to witness the glory of this amazing animal in its natural habitat.
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