Fair, but the restoration is a pittance compared to what the herds used to be like. Granted, I wouldn’t want to step out of my house and be trampled by a bison because there were so many of them, but still, it was a tremendous upset to a natural system, and systematic genocide to boot. Nothing much to like about how it all happened.
I read an interesting hypothesis a few months ago that the vast herds of bison were actually due to indigenous Americans being killed off by disease due to European settlers. They were no longer managing the land, so the grasses took over and the bison population exploded.
Obviously, there were still far more bison than there are today, but possibly not the massive herds of thousands that colonists reported seeing on their way west.
That’s an incorrect hypothesis. Tall grass prairie, while definitely manipulated by indigenous people, doesn’t really require management; it’s the climax community for the biome. Further, fringe areas, like parkland, actually encroach on grasslands, not the other way around.
Grasses are disturbance specialists, and prairie has a natural and short fire cycle that maintains this disturbance. Take away the disturbance and you get woody species coming in on the fringe areas. In this regard, First Nations would burn parkland to create more area for grassland. If their population were declining, the lack of management would result in less bison habitat, not more.
E: I’m hilariously lost with the original comment - everyone point and laugh please. Lmao.
Fair, but the restoration is a pittance compared to what the herds used to be like. Granted, I wouldn’t want to step out of my house and be trampled by a bison because there were so many of them, but still, it was a tremendous upset to a natural system, and systematic genocide to boot. Nothing much to like about how it all happened.
I read an interesting hypothesis a few months ago that the vast herds of bison were actually due to indigenous Americans being killed off by disease due to European settlers. They were no longer managing the land, so the grasses took over and the bison population exploded.
Obviously, there were still far more bison than there are today, but possibly not the massive herds of thousands that colonists reported seeing on their way west.
That’s an incorrect hypothesis. Tall grass prairie, while definitely manipulated by indigenous people, doesn’t really require management; it’s the climax community for the biome. Further, fringe areas, like parkland, actually encroach on grasslands, not the other way around.
Grasses are disturbance specialists, and prairie has a natural and short fire cycle that maintains this disturbance. Take away the disturbance and you get woody species coming in on the fringe areas. In this regard, First Nations would burn parkland to create more area for grassland. If their population were declining, the lack of management would result in less bison habitat, not more.
E: I’m hilariously lost with the original comment - everyone point and laugh please. Lmao.
Ok