OK, this is pretty cool.
Apparently the plan is for the bison to eat the tall grasses in order to get the smaller grasses and wildflowers better growth opportunities on an existing prairie preserve in Indiana/Illinois. I am pretty much down with this plan. Because, hey, bison in Indiana. …And I guess Illinois, too.
MMmm. Bison are tasty.
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What? At least this is far less hare-brained than wolf repopulation.
Those &–%$8- &$$($.
To give you an idea of how devastating those wolves are, hunters used to harvest between 250-300 elk from the North Soldier allotment annually.
Now, it’s 20. In a good year. Most years aren’t that good.
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Sure, the government has publicly committed to reimbursing ranchers and sheepherders for stock killed by wolves. But government investigations have found that nearly all carcasses eaten by wolves and surrounded by wolf tracks were mysteriously killed by something else. Probably aliens.
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In the meantime, the feds are talking about depopulating tens of thousands of square miles so that fool hens (sorry, sage grouse) can continue to be wiped out by the coyotes we’re no longer allowed to effectively control. (But at least the farging windmills have solved the problem of Golden Eagles preying on them. So there’s that.)
there is a heard of Bison at Fermi National Accelerator Lab, near Batavia, IL
I’m not automatically against it, but I’d sure like to know what vaccinations they received. Bang’s disease is bad news, and it’s pretty rampant in the buffalo population.