American Bison

American Bison

... 20 animals will be released from the corral to gradually roam much of the 3,500-acre Nachusa Grasslands — the key part of an ambitious prairie restoration 95 miles west of Chicago.

Nearly 60 percent of the state, about 22 million acres, once was prairie, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources reports. Over the centuries, farms consumed much of it, leaving only 2,500 acres of prairie in Illinois today, the DNR states.

“There still are species that are dependent on this habitat to live,” Considine said [Cody Considine Chief Nachusa ecologist]. “It’s our heritage, our culture, and we’re preserving and improving and increasing that at Nachusa. Bison just add to that restoration circle, if you will. It’s kind of the last piece of the puzzle of really having a full-functioning prairie.”

People worked hundreds of thousands of hours — an estimated 450,000 — at the preserve, including years of harvesting native plant seeds. Last year's harvest gathered a record 6,500 pounds of seeds, conservancy spokeswoman Gelasia Croom said.

This past October, Wild Bison were reintroduced onto the prairies, east of the Mississippi. It was the first time these prairies have seen the American Bison since the 1830s. The Nachusa land is owned by The Nature Conservancy who have been buying up land in Northern Illinois since 1986. Their hope has been to reconstitute at least a small part of Illinois' prairies. Illinois, while known as "The Prairie State," hasn't had much in the way of prairies for many decades now. The amount of prairie lost due to westward expansion is pretty staggering: The Nature Conservancy has been introducing a variety of animals over the years. The bump in attention they've received from this recent Bison reintroduction will hopefully be beneficial. In the end it's people that have made these large and small steps forward in environmental conservation. Since 1986:Great job!