Post by Travis on Oct 29, 2020 6:04:06 GMT -8
American Serengeti, The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains
By Dan Flores*
When we think of the Serengeti, we may imagine vast herds of exotic animals and safaris by rich Europeans and Americans seeking trophies to decorate the great rooms of their large houses. We think of Africa.
But for a time, that was America also. Where in America? Today we might think of the Lamar Valley and Yellowstone. There each year millions of visitors go to see elk, bison, pronghorn, grizzlies, wolves, and coyotes. Some of those visitors are backpackers, some of us among them.
But if we check the regional forums, who ever asks about backpacking Nebraska, Kansas, the Texas panhandle, or the Dakotas? That is short-grass ranching country, sagebrush steppe or flat prairies. It's what settlers in wagon trains of the 1800s called "the Great American Desert." And even today we may dread the long drive across that dreary landscape on one straight Interstate highway or another.
In effect Dan Flores is asking, What have we done to the American Serengeti? It is here on the Great Plains. Yellowstone is a magical place. But where did that charismatic wildlife of Yellowstone come from? Many of those species evolved on the Great Plains with saber-toothed tigers, lions, wooly mammoths, dire wolves, hyenas, wild horses and camels. The Great Plains was their homeland. Yellowstone and a few other small areas are the reservations they are now restricted to.
Dan Flores is a backpacker and retired history professor from the University of Montana. He writes the history of wildlife and ecosystems of the Great Plains, the American Serengeti. He makes apparent that what is dreadful is not the land as it once was but what humans have done to it in wanton destruction of wildlife. It was a place that amazed Lewis and Clark, inspired famous painters, and was the envy of Europeans eager to see it.
And now? Now the American Serengeti is too often that boring drive between the cities of the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains. But there are places here and there that we are beginning to realize are worth preserving and re-wilding not just for wildlife but for native grasses, forbs and trees. Flores writes of places like the Upper Missouri Breaks and Fort Peck in Montana, Theodore Roosevelt NP in North Dakota, the Badlands and Wind Cave NP in South Dakota, and on south to Palo Duro in Texas. This is that story, also.
*Dan Flores, American Serengeti, the Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2016), 1-213.
By Dan Flores*
When we think of the Serengeti, we may imagine vast herds of exotic animals and safaris by rich Europeans and Americans seeking trophies to decorate the great rooms of their large houses. We think of Africa.
But for a time, that was America also. Where in America? Today we might think of the Lamar Valley and Yellowstone. There each year millions of visitors go to see elk, bison, pronghorn, grizzlies, wolves, and coyotes. Some of those visitors are backpackers, some of us among them.
But if we check the regional forums, who ever asks about backpacking Nebraska, Kansas, the Texas panhandle, or the Dakotas? That is short-grass ranching country, sagebrush steppe or flat prairies. It's what settlers in wagon trains of the 1800s called "the Great American Desert." And even today we may dread the long drive across that dreary landscape on one straight Interstate highway or another.
In effect Dan Flores is asking, What have we done to the American Serengeti? It is here on the Great Plains. Yellowstone is a magical place. But where did that charismatic wildlife of Yellowstone come from? Many of those species evolved on the Great Plains with saber-toothed tigers, lions, wooly mammoths, dire wolves, hyenas, wild horses and camels. The Great Plains was their homeland. Yellowstone and a few other small areas are the reservations they are now restricted to.
Dan Flores is a backpacker and retired history professor from the University of Montana. He writes the history of wildlife and ecosystems of the Great Plains, the American Serengeti. He makes apparent that what is dreadful is not the land as it once was but what humans have done to it in wanton destruction of wildlife. It was a place that amazed Lewis and Clark, inspired famous painters, and was the envy of Europeans eager to see it.
And now? Now the American Serengeti is too often that boring drive between the cities of the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains. But there are places here and there that we are beginning to realize are worth preserving and re-wilding not just for wildlife but for native grasses, forbs and trees. Flores writes of places like the Upper Missouri Breaks and Fort Peck in Montana, Theodore Roosevelt NP in North Dakota, the Badlands and Wind Cave NP in South Dakota, and on south to Palo Duro in Texas. This is that story, also.
*Dan Flores, American Serengeti, the Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2016), 1-213.
