| Description |
In what ways does the potential recovery of the North American bison (Bison bison bison) in the United States represent an opportunity for restorative justice, improved ecological integrity, and the reimposition of many grassland ecosystem services? Further, could the story of the American bison from 1865 onward, including future possibilities, be viewed as a potential turning point in the American perspective on the environment? This thesis aims to explore how the restoration of wild North American bison populations, particularly in the northern range and Great Plains regions of their former habitat, could offer cultural, economic, and environmental benefits. To do so, the paper explores the history of wild bison management in the United States, including the near extinction of the species in the wild and modern policy, the ecological processes and ecosystem services that wild bison contribute to, opposition to bison restoration, the management techniques for wild bison in thirty-seven different areas of the United States (the sample includes most but not every wild bison population), the and value of wild bison to specific Indigenous cultures. By doing so, this thesis also highlights the ways American environmental policy has shifted over time and how bison restoration could be a form of restorative justice by recovering a species that was so crucial to both grassland ecosystems and multiple Indigenous Tribes. |
