1 00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:04,720 Speaker 1: Despite its role as the central region of the frontier 2 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:07,960 Speaker 1: story in the West, the Great Planes in the twenty 3 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:13,640 Speaker 1: first century is requiring novel conservation approaches to recapture its 4 00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:35,680 Speaker 1: former magic. I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American West, 5 00:00:37,479 --> 00:00:42,479 Speaker 1: loving the planes, hating the planes, rewilding the planes. 6 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:47,879 Speaker 2: I know almost nothing useful about W. H. 7 00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:52,560 Speaker 1: Auden, the twentieth century British writer critic, except that he 8 00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:57,080 Speaker 1: once wrote these lines, which I committed to memory. I 9 00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:01,880 Speaker 1: cannot see a plane without a shutter. Oh God, please, 10 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:07,080 Speaker 1: please don't ever make me live there. Auten put an 11 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:11,399 Speaker 1: exclamation point at the end of that sentence. The sentiment 12 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:14,040 Speaker 1: is what I suspect a great many modern Americans would 13 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:18,480 Speaker 1: agree with as they drive through or fly over America's 14 00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:24,039 Speaker 1: vast plains country. The Great Plains is not, by any 15 00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:28,800 Speaker 1: usual measure of landscape esthetics and admired part of America. 16 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:32,600 Speaker 1: These days, we no longer loved the plains the way 17 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:38,120 Speaker 1: we love mountains or oceans or even deserts. A few 18 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:43,280 Speaker 1: of us are outlier exceptions, though. In the nineteen eighties 19 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,960 Speaker 1: and nineteen nineties, I built a house and a shallow 20 00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:52,280 Speaker 1: canyon set into the horizontal yellow prairie sweeps of West Texas, 21 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:56,800 Speaker 1: and today I live in another house I've built in 22 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:01,520 Speaker 1: Pinon Juniper Foothills, only twenty miles west of the High 23 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:08,280 Speaker 1: Plains of New Mexico. In an experiential refutation of W. H. Auden, 24 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:12,799 Speaker 1: I can say honestly that no other landscape has ever 25 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:17,720 Speaker 1: moved me the way the plains have done. So try 26 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:21,880 Speaker 1: to suspend disbelief over that sentence for a moment. I 27 00:02:21,919 --> 00:02:24,760 Speaker 1: grew up in southern forest, lived for two decades in 28 00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:28,359 Speaker 1: the heart of the Montana Rockies, and impassionately in love 29 00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:34,560 Speaker 1: with deserts, especially where souarros loom like cactus, redwoods. And 30 00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:37,240 Speaker 1: I travel to ocean since, like most of us, I 31 00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: find something hypnotic and satisfying to my genetic memory on 32 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:46,839 Speaker 1: an ocean beach. But the woods, the mountains, the sea, 33 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,280 Speaker 1: even the deserts, all of which appear at first glance 34 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:56,480 Speaker 1: richer and more varied, lack the simple minimalism, the vastness 35 00:02:56,639 --> 00:03:01,280 Speaker 1: of earth and sky that's so powerful with an Aurora 36 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:08,680 Speaker 1: sunrise are on a glittering night on the plains. I 37 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:12,720 Speaker 1: realize few other Americans, even other Westerners, react this way. 38 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:17,200 Speaker 1: Driving a car across America's prairies and planes. To many, 39 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:21,400 Speaker 1: the horizontal yellow spaces are hardly inspiring. What most of 40 00:03:21,480 --> 00:03:26,919 Speaker 1: us see, if we bother to look, is emptiness. No water, 41 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:31,720 Speaker 1: no trees, no green, almost no people. What there is 42 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,360 Speaker 1: in abundance is when which buffets and rocks your car. 43 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:39,000 Speaker 1: As you drive, the horizon encircles the world like the 44 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:42,840 Speaker 1: rim of an enormous plate. No matter how fast you go, 45 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:47,120 Speaker 1: that horizon recedes in front of you, eventually placing you 46 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:50,800 Speaker 1: in a kind of twilight zone of suspended forward motion. 47 00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:54,320 Speaker 1: There are stretches where if you roll down the windows, 48 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:58,520 Speaker 1: the country smells of ammonia, feed lots and hog farms, 49 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:03,040 Speaker 1: and those are pretty sense. At midday, the light can 50 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:06,880 Speaker 1: be almost too bright to look at, or else it's 51 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:13,839 Speaker 1: a diffuse brown pall agriculture going airborne. As for our 52 00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:19,279 Speaker 1: presence on the plains, the human infrastructure often looks beaten 53 00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:23,800 Speaker 1: and discarded. Dying towns memorable for the amount of wind 54 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:28,919 Speaker 1: blown waste snagged on chain mesh fences loom and recede 55 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:35,680 Speaker 1: along laser straight highways. Billboards unintentionally advertise a kind of 56 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:41,000 Speaker 1: twenty first century great chain of being. Jesus cowboy boots, 57 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:47,479 Speaker 1: farm machinery, banking loans, moving truck deals, maybe diversions like 58 00:04:47,839 --> 00:04:50,120 Speaker 1: the Minnesota Vikings or the Denver Broncos. 59 00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:52,960 Speaker 2: Beyond the frequent site. 60 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:58,000 Speaker 1: Oddly, in these seer expanses of thousands of waterfowl threading 61 00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:02,000 Speaker 1: the blue bowl overhead, you're in a world of erasures. 62 00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:06,240 Speaker 1: Maybe you see prong horns if you look hard, or 63 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,320 Speaker 1: a coyote rocking across the road. Are the occasional prairie 64 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:14,760 Speaker 1: dog struggling for a comeback after the prairie dog holocaust. 65 00:05:15,839 --> 00:05:19,599 Speaker 1: This is the West that everybody prefers looking down on 66 00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:24,839 Speaker 1: from twenty thousand feet. If you feel this way about 67 00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:27,960 Speaker 1: the plains, maybe what I'm about to say next will 68 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:32,960 Speaker 1: nudge you in a different direction. It was not always 69 00:05:33,200 --> 00:05:38,680 Speaker 1: this way, not very long ago, reactions to the plains 70 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:42,840 Speaker 1: West were very different. Let me quote a few of 71 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,720 Speaker 1: those past reactions. They're about the same place I just described, 72 00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:53,080 Speaker 1: and that most of us have experienced. Two hundred and 73 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:57,840 Speaker 1: a few years ago, a Scottish scientist from Natchez, Mississippi, 74 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:03,000 Speaker 1: who President Thomas Jefferson engaged to help him plan Young 75 00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:09,320 Speaker 1: America's Western explorations, recreated for Jefferson the sense of excitement 76 00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:16,880 Speaker 1: Western travelers had about traversing the Great Plains. Raised in Elgin, Morayshire, 77 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:20,400 Speaker 1: on the northern coast of Scotland, and educated at the 78 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:24,400 Speaker 1: University of Glasgow, William Dunbar spent his early life in 79 00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:28,440 Speaker 1: a very different kind of landscape than the American plains, 80 00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:33,000 Speaker 1: now situated on the forested edges of fascination with that 81 00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:39,200 Speaker 1: country farther west, Dunbar recreated for Jefferson a thrilling world 82 00:06:40,279 --> 00:06:44,520 Speaker 1: by the expression plains or prairies. He told the President, 83 00:06:45,080 --> 00:06:48,680 Speaker 1: it is not to be understood a dead flat without 84 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:53,520 Speaker 1: any eminences. The Western prairies are very different. The expression 85 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: signifies only a country without timber. These prairies are neither 86 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:03,120 Speaker 1: flat nor hilly, but undulating, in gently swelling lawns and 87 00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:05,440 Speaker 1: expanding into spacious valleys. 88 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:09,520 Speaker 2: Dunbar went on, Those who have viewed only. 89 00:07:09,320 --> 00:07:12,000 Speaker 1: A skirt of these prairies speak of them with a 90 00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:15,920 Speaker 1: degree of enthusiasm, as if it were only there that 91 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,480 Speaker 1: nature was to be found truly perfect. They declare that 92 00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:24,840 Speaker 1: the fertility and beauty of the vegetation, the extreme richness 93 00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:27,920 Speaker 1: of the valleys, the coolest and excellent quality of the 94 00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:32,320 Speaker 1: water found everywhere. The salubrity of the atmosphere, and above all, 95 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:36,480 Speaker 1: the grander of the enchanting landscape which this country presents, 96 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:41,080 Speaker 1: inspires the soul with sensations not to be felt in 97 00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:56,760 Speaker 1: any other region of a globe. In later letters, Dunbar 98 00:07:56,880 --> 00:08:02,240 Speaker 1: told Jefferson what he called wonderful stories of wonderful productions 99 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:06,560 Speaker 1: on the great prairies. Especially compelling were the accounts of 100 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:10,840 Speaker 1: the wildlife riches there in this natural pasturage. There were 101 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:15,440 Speaker 1: buffalo and other grazers in numbers beyond imagination, even herds 102 00:08:15,440 --> 00:08:21,240 Speaker 1: of wild horses like zebras in Africa. There were bears, tigers, wolves, 103 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:24,960 Speaker 1: all the animals that lived off those grazers. There were 104 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,720 Speaker 1: accounts of giant water serpents, which a scientist like Dunbar 105 00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:31,600 Speaker 1: did not credit. All of it he passed on to 106 00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:35,440 Speaker 1: an American president, whose house at Monticello was. 107 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:37,760 Speaker 2: Decorated with maps of the West. 108 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:43,240 Speaker 1: Americans in the Jeffersonian Age were obviously not the first 109 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:46,880 Speaker 1: to see the wonders of the continent savannahs, but they 110 00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:50,640 Speaker 1: were among the first since the sixteenth century Spanish explorers 111 00:08:50,679 --> 00:08:53,080 Speaker 1: to write extensively of what they saw. 112 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:55,199 Speaker 2: Meriwether Lewis, for. 113 00:08:55,240 --> 00:08:58,440 Speaker 1: One, as his party was just entering the plains in 114 00:08:58,480 --> 00:09:03,600 Speaker 1: today's South Dakota, described how the shortness and verdue of 115 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:08,079 Speaker 1: the grass gave the plains the appearance throughout its whole 116 00:09:08,240 --> 00:09:14,040 Speaker 1: extent of beautiful bowling greens in fine order. The party 117 00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:18,199 Speaker 1: could hardly believe the wildlife spectacle on those bowling greens. 118 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:24,040 Speaker 1: This scenery, already rich, pleasing and beautiful, was still farther 119 00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:29,480 Speaker 1: heightened by immense herds of buffalo, deer, elk, and antelopes, 120 00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:33,280 Speaker 1: which we saw in every direction feeding on the hills 121 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:39,840 Speaker 1: and plains. Zebulin Pike, exploring farther south two years after Lewis, 122 00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:44,280 Speaker 1: found the high plains along the Arkansas River more barren 123 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:47,839 Speaker 1: than green. In fact, he thought the southern plains a match, 124 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:51,440 Speaker 1: as he put it, for the sandy deserts of Africa. 125 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:53,959 Speaker 2: This was the same part of the. 126 00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:58,880 Speaker 1: Plains that would inspire the Stephen Long exploring party a 127 00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:03,280 Speaker 1: few years later to pronounce the central and southern stretches 128 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:08,400 Speaker 1: of the plains unfit for agriculture, and thus a barrier 129 00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:14,600 Speaker 1: to any advancing frontier settlers planning to farm. Yet traveling 130 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:18,160 Speaker 1: over this dusty plain of sand and gravel barren as 131 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:23,160 Speaker 1: the deserts of Arabia was never tedious, they said, because 132 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:36,840 Speaker 1: the wildlife spectacle was absolutely thrilling. Returning to civilization down 133 00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:41,840 Speaker 1: the Canadian River in today's western Oklahoma, Long's party traveled 134 00:10:41,880 --> 00:10:48,680 Speaker 1: through inconceivable numbers of herbiferous animals and innumerable birds and 135 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:55,280 Speaker 1: beasts of prey. Herds of wild horses five hundred strong 136 00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:59,839 Speaker 1: surrounded them. All These animals were so teamed that they 137 00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:04,439 Speaker 1: peered wholly unaccustomed to the side of men, they wrote. 138 00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:05,719 Speaker 2: The bisons and. 139 00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:09,960 Speaker 1: Wolves moved slowly off to right and left, leaving a 140 00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:14,760 Speaker 1: lane for the party to pass. Long's official report claimed 141 00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:19,840 Speaker 1: that the western plains seemed peculiarly adapted as arranged for 142 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:25,200 Speaker 1: Buffalo's wild goats and other wild game. As a result, 143 00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:30,080 Speaker 1: these explorers thought the plan's best left just as they 144 00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:34,200 Speaker 1: had found them. Other nineteenth century Americans were amazed and 145 00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:38,079 Speaker 1: too curious not to go see. The famous writer Washington 146 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:41,520 Speaker 1: Irving was enthralled enough to go himself and then write 147 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:46,560 Speaker 1: Travels in the Prairie. New York novelist James Finnimore Cooper 148 00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:51,679 Speaker 1: wrote a leatherstocking novel about the planes. The painter of Indians. 149 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:56,280 Speaker 1: George Catlin was besotted and did his best, which often 150 00:11:56,400 --> 00:12:01,200 Speaker 1: wasn't so great, to capture prairie landscapes and wild life. Germans, 151 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:06,040 Speaker 1: who trained with the legendary naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, explored 152 00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:08,800 Speaker 1: around the world, but one of the places they sought 153 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:13,720 Speaker 1: out was the American plains. Prince Maximilian of v Nuvid 154 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:18,760 Speaker 1: brought with him the amazing animal and landscape painter Carl Bodmer, 155 00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:22,320 Speaker 1: whose collection of oils dawned on the Missouri in the 156 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,160 Speaker 1: early eighteen thirties are some of our very best great 157 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:30,439 Speaker 1: plains time travel machines. And of course there was John 158 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:35,000 Speaker 1: James Audubon, who left us wonderful accounts from his eighteen 159 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:39,360 Speaker 1: forty three trip up the Missouri. With his son's accounts 160 00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:43,520 Speaker 1: I've laid out in prior episodes. Even after the Civil War, 161 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 1: when travelers, naturalists and artists going west were responding to 162 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:53,240 Speaker 1: America's so called Hudson River School painters and their rapture 163 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:58,920 Speaker 1: over mountains, the plains remained unforgettable for many. America's poet 164 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:02,600 Speaker 1: laureate of the nineteen teenth century, that ultimate lover of 165 00:13:02,679 --> 00:13:07,480 Speaker 1: being alive in a vibrant time was captivated what Whitman 166 00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:10,640 Speaker 1: saw the plans for the first time after the Civil War, 167 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:15,240 Speaker 1: when the animals and native inhabitants still held sway and 168 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:18,600 Speaker 1: the frontier was then hosting one of the greatest dramas 169 00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:22,560 Speaker 1: in the world. His reaction was simple and direct. I 170 00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:26,079 Speaker 1: can almost quote it from memory. While I know the 171 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:31,560 Speaker 1: standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Upper Yellowstone 172 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:36,160 Speaker 1: and the like afford the greatest natural shows, I'm not 173 00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:39,840 Speaker 1: so sure. But the prairies and the plains, while less 174 00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:44,360 Speaker 1: stunning at first sight, lasts longer fill the esthetic sense, 175 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:50,280 Speaker 1: fuller precede all the rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape. 176 00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:54,400 Speaker 1: Consider that when you look out the car window for 177 00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:59,160 Speaker 1: mountains as a signal that traversing the plains is finally over. 178 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:09,440 Speaker 1: As long as the wildlife spectacle lasted, the planes continued 179 00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:13,800 Speaker 1: to intrigue the same set of eclectic adventurers from Europe 180 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:17,319 Speaker 1: who searched out the sources of the Nile in Africa 181 00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:22,440 Speaker 1: or became wide hunters there. Prairie fever is what they 182 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:26,840 Speaker 1: called this fascination in the nineteenth century. Even in the 183 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:31,000 Speaker 1: twentieth century, after five decades of killing had rendered the 184 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:36,720 Speaker 1: planes eerily silent. But before agriculture pulled the grass up wholesale, 185 00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:42,760 Speaker 1: the region could steal entrance for New York bohemian Mabel Dodge, 186 00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:47,920 Speaker 1: journeying by train to New Mexico. The plane seemed a desert, 187 00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:52,280 Speaker 1: but a beautiful one that, in her words, rolled away 188 00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:58,640 Speaker 1: for miles and miles, empty, smooth and uninterrupted. I thought 189 00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:03,480 Speaker 1: I had never seen a landscape reduced to such simple elements. 190 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:07,200 Speaker 2: Young Georgia O'Keefe. 191 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,240 Speaker 1: Sentenced to a career as an art teacher in outback 192 00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:14,800 Speaker 1: Texas during World War One before becoming an internationally known 193 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:20,120 Speaker 1: painter out on the undulating sweeps near Amarillo, marveled at 194 00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:23,840 Speaker 1: how you could just drive or walk off into space. 195 00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:27,520 Speaker 1: As she said, it's absurd the way I love this country. 196 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:32,080 Speaker 1: Writing her friend Daniel cat and Rich As late as 197 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:36,520 Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, O'Keefe told him crossing the Panhandle of 198 00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:40,800 Speaker 1: Texas is always a very special event for me, driving 199 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:44,240 Speaker 1: in the early morning, toward the dawn and rising sun. 200 00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:48,200 Speaker 1: The plains are not like anything else, and I always 201 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:53,280 Speaker 1: wonder why I go other places. The Western writers Mary 202 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:58,120 Speaker 1: Sandoz and Willa Cather reacted in a similar way to 203 00:15:58,200 --> 00:15:59,600 Speaker 1: the country that produced them. 204 00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:01,160 Speaker 2: Catherine told a. 205 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:04,840 Speaker 1: Back home newspaper in nineteen twenty one. I go everywhere, 206 00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:08,000 Speaker 1: I admire all kinds of country, But when I strike 207 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,520 Speaker 1: the open plains, something happens. 208 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,080 Speaker 2: I'm home. I breathe differently. 209 00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:17,000 Speaker 1: That love of great spaces, of rolling open country like 210 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:20,640 Speaker 1: the sea, It's the grand passion of my life. I've 211 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:24,040 Speaker 1: tried for years to get over it. I've stopped trying. 212 00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:30,480 Speaker 1: It's incurable. Even without the great herds, without the wolf packs, 213 00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:35,080 Speaker 1: or the side of a grizzly suddenly standing upright in 214 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:40,080 Speaker 1: river Willows. When the landscape itself was still intact, the 215 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:44,200 Speaker 1: Great Plains could excite the eye with a rhythmic, ocean 216 00:16:44,400 --> 00:17:01,440 Speaker 1: like topography. There's an obvious question to pose here. What's 217 00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:04,840 Speaker 1: happened to make the modern reaction to the Great Plains 218 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:08,200 Speaker 1: so different? How, in other words, do you get from 219 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:13,960 Speaker 1: Walt Whitman and Willa Cather to flyover country. That answer 220 00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:17,320 Speaker 1: has to do with the stunning transformation this part of 221 00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:20,960 Speaker 1: the West underwent at our hands in the late nineteenth 222 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:25,320 Speaker 1: and early twentieth centuries. In the relative wink of an eye, 223 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:29,919 Speaker 1: we dismantled and demolished a ten thousand year old ecology, 224 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,280 Speaker 1: one of the most exciting natural spectacles in the world. 225 00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:38,440 Speaker 1: For the women tuned into the Plains sand O's O'Keefe Cather, 226 00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:42,800 Speaker 1: it was not wildlife beyond imagining that stunned them, but 227 00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:46,199 Speaker 1: in their case a sense of freedom at being in 228 00:17:46,480 --> 00:17:51,080 Speaker 1: vast natural spaces that appealed a country like the ocean 229 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:55,520 Speaker 1: was a phrase that served as a code for feeling free, 230 00:17:55,720 --> 00:17:59,280 Speaker 1: but historical forces that mounted as railroads and ranching and 231 00:17:59,359 --> 00:18:02,720 Speaker 1: farming around I've destroyed much even of that great plains. 232 00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:08,280 Speaker 1: True enough, reducing thirty million bison to one thousand, fifteen 233 00:18:08,320 --> 00:18:11,720 Speaker 1: million prong horns to five thousand, rounding up all the 234 00:18:11,760 --> 00:18:16,000 Speaker 1: wild horses for pet food, erasing all the wolves entirely, 235 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:19,000 Speaker 1: all done so the cow and the sheep could replace 236 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:21,159 Speaker 1: them was the unkindest cut. 237 00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:22,920 Speaker 2: But there was more. 238 00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:29,439 Speaker 1: Act two was the agricultural assault. Level grasslands didn't present 239 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:35,119 Speaker 1: the obstacles to mono crop market agriculture that other landscapes did. So. 240 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:39,840 Speaker 1: From the eighteen fifties to the nineteen thirties, homesteading policies 241 00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:44,640 Speaker 1: privatized the vast bulk of the former American Serengetti in 242 00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:48,439 Speaker 1: Kansas and Colorado. The big breakout took place on either 243 00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:52,280 Speaker 1: side of the twentieth century. In Oklahoma, the land rushes 244 00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:58,480 Speaker 1: resulted from Indian reservation allotments. Settlers broke out in Nebraska, 245 00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:03,240 Speaker 1: the Dakota's east in Montana, and plains New Mexico after 246 00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:08,200 Speaker 1: Congress passed an enlarged Homestead Act in nineteen oh nine. 247 00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:13,200 Speaker 1: In Texas, with its anomalous lands history and long devotion 248 00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:18,840 Speaker 1: to privatization, the breakup of the Gigantic X Ranch in 249 00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:23,639 Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen brought farmers by the train load to the Yanos, 250 00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:28,879 Speaker 1: Toccado and the Rolling Plains of Texas. Entirely transforming a 251 00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:31,359 Speaker 1: ten thousand year old ecology in the space of one 252 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:34,800 Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years is a staggering thing to contemplate 253 00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:39,879 Speaker 1: on the southern Blackland Prairie of Texas. In Oklahoma, agriculture 254 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:43,720 Speaker 1: has by now reduced to ancient grasslands there to only 255 00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:49,640 Speaker 1: one percent of their original coverage. By two thousand and one, 256 00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:55,679 Speaker 1: even Saskatchewan had only nineteen percent of its native prairie left. 257 00:19:56,440 --> 00:20:00,720 Speaker 1: North Dakota possessed only twenty eight percent of its remaining 258 00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:04,080 Speaker 1: prairie at the beginning of this century, and that was 259 00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:08,960 Speaker 1: before the Bacan oil boom. Texas has an overall average 260 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,760 Speaker 1: of twenty percent of its prairie left today, although the 261 00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:16,800 Speaker 1: part of the high Plains I know best, the Yanos Tacado, 262 00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:22,119 Speaker 1: is in far worst shape. Lubbock County, where I once lived, 263 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:27,440 Speaker 1: by nineteen eighty had lost ninety seven percent of its 264 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:33,240 Speaker 1: native grasslands. Literally all that remained was in Yellow House Canyon, 265 00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:37,760 Speaker 1: a grassy gorge. Ranchers had settled because there was a 266 00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:40,800 Speaker 1: little stream threading it and it was too rugged to 267 00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:45,679 Speaker 1: plow and put in cotton. Economics left Yellow House to 268 00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,840 Speaker 1: the cows and to me. Back in the West of 269 00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:54,680 Speaker 1: eighteen oh six, homeward bound Lewis and Clark were desperate 270 00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:58,439 Speaker 1: to escape the wildlife poor in difficult Rocky mountains and 271 00:20:58,560 --> 00:20:59,760 Speaker 1: return to the plains. 272 00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:02,280 Speaker 2: Two centuries of history. 273 00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:05,919 Speaker 1: Have accomplished a reversal of that. Now, the National Forest 274 00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:09,400 Speaker 1: of the Rockies are home to most of the West wildlife, 275 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:11,919 Speaker 1: but in one of the more exciting plains developments in 276 00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:16,960 Speaker 1: recent years, elk, grizzlies and wolves have once again started 277 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,800 Speaker 1: to push out of the mountains and into their former 278 00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:21,679 Speaker 1: Great Plains homelands. 279 00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:32,120 Speaker 2: This is a three act story. 280 00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:36,960 Speaker 1: Once, when its ecological health was fulsome and intact, we 281 00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:38,840 Speaker 1: thrilled to the plains part. 282 00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:39,840 Speaker 2: Of the West. 283 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:44,080 Speaker 1: Then we homesteaded it and wreaked havoc on its natural world, 284 00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:48,960 Speaker 1: creating flyover country. For the past three quarters of a century, 285 00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:52,800 Speaker 1: a third phase has been building momentum. Phase three is 286 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:57,600 Speaker 1: still a vision, a vision to reimagine and recreate the 287 00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:03,480 Speaker 1: setting that once infected us with prairie fever. Rewilding the 288 00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:08,760 Speaker 1: Great Plains with its traditional charismatic big animals means finding 289 00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:13,800 Speaker 1: places where the antelope can still play. Natural grasslands and 290 00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:17,640 Speaker 1: prairie ecosystems are now among some of the most under 291 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:20,800 Speaker 1: preserved natural regions on the continent. 292 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:22,600 Speaker 2: And indeed in the world. 293 00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:26,800 Speaker 1: Despite acclaimed examples of grassland parks that now preserve the 294 00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:31,440 Speaker 1: charismatic wild animals of the African Plains, such as the Masai, 295 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:35,480 Speaker 1: Mara and Krueger Parks in Africa and the Elmas in 296 00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:39,160 Speaker 1: Brazil conservation in the United States, for a very long 297 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:44,080 Speaker 1: time overlook the plains. Irony doesn't even capture knowing that 298 00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:47,920 Speaker 1: the first call for an America National Park by artist 299 00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:51,000 Speaker 1: George Catlan in eighteen thirty two was for a park 300 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,040 Speaker 1: on the Great Plains, but all of us are aware 301 00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:57,840 Speaker 1: that the most famous Western national parks are nowhere near 302 00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,280 Speaker 1: the plains. The National Park Service during its early history 303 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:06,240 Speaker 1: was embarrassingly apathetic toward parks on the grasslands. 304 00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:06,680 Speaker 2: East of the Rockies. 305 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:10,119 Speaker 1: That began to change in the nineteen thirties, but not 306 00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:14,040 Speaker 1: before there were huge misses during the initial phase of 307 00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:18,160 Speaker 1: national park history. The scenic ideals of the Romantic Age 308 00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:24,080 Speaker 1: was for scenery thought to be sublime. Sublime landscapes were 309 00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:25,440 Speaker 1: always vertical. 310 00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,560 Speaker 2: The more monumentally vertical, the better. 311 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:35,080 Speaker 1: The horizontal was decidedly not sublime, So the major conservation 312 00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:39,119 Speaker 1: initiatives that gave us our national park public lands a 313 00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,840 Speaker 1: century ago focused on Western terrain that was like the 314 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:51,119 Speaker 1: European Alps, in other words, soaring mountain peaks, gasp inducing canyons. 315 00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,719 Speaker 1: This meant that the Rockies, the Sierras and Cascades, and 316 00:23:55,800 --> 00:24:01,640 Speaker 1: the Colorado Plateau became the bastions of the parkland public lands. 317 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,960 Speaker 1: The powers that fashion the Western scenic parks in the 318 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:11,120 Speaker 1: lower forty eight almost entirely ignored landscapes like the western 319 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:16,040 Speaker 1: deserts and the plains, grasslands, Yellowstone and Glacier and Rocky 320 00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:20,679 Speaker 1: Mountain National Parks, along with the Great Canyons like Yosemite, Zion, 321 00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:25,200 Speaker 1: and the Grand Canyon, thus became the neplu ultra examples 322 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:30,400 Speaker 1: of American parks. These landscapes aren't just vertical, they're monumentally vertical. 323 00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,800 Speaker 1: No landscapes on the plains seemed very interesting to an 324 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:39,000 Speaker 1: American public with an esthetic taste based on European ideals, 325 00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:43,960 Speaker 1: or a park service with this value of scenery. Except 326 00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:48,119 Speaker 1: for tiny Wind Cave Park in South Dakota, the only 327 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,320 Speaker 1: significant plains nature preservation in the early years of the 328 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:56,560 Speaker 1: twentieth century. The heydays of the Grand Parks came when 329 00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:02,880 Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt's administration proclaimed a small mountain range in southwestern Oklahoma, 330 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:13,040 Speaker 1: the Wichita Mountains wildlife Refuge. With the emergence of the 331 00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:17,320 Speaker 1: science of ecology by the nineteen thirties, the Park Service 332 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:23,280 Speaker 1: gradually began to appreciate the idea of preserving ecologies. But 333 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,080 Speaker 1: now a new problem surfaced. Until the creation of the 334 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,359 Speaker 1: Land and Water Conservation Fund in nineteen sixty four, the 335 00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:35,040 Speaker 1: Park Service in America had no budget to acquire parks. 336 00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,240 Speaker 1: That hadn't been an issue when parks and monuments came 337 00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:42,800 Speaker 1: from the public lands, but it became an almost insurmountable 338 00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:47,600 Speaker 1: obstacle on the prairie, where widespread privatization had meant that 339 00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:52,320 Speaker 1: almost every potential site for a prairie National Park would 340 00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:56,399 Speaker 1: have to be purchased. In the nineteen twenties, the American 341 00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:01,399 Speaker 1: pioneer of the science of ecology, Victorshell, and a group 342 00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:05,359 Speaker 1: called the Committee of Ecology of the Grasslands began to 343 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:10,639 Speaker 1: press for large Great Plains preserves based on ecological factors 344 00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:16,480 Speaker 1: rather than seenic spectacle. They studied eleven sites, found four 345 00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:21,400 Speaker 1: more than acceptable, and eventually submitted one spanning three quarters 346 00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,679 Speaker 1: of a million acres in Nebraska and South Dakota to 347 00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:29,560 Speaker 1: the Park Service and Congress. But lacking an acquisition budget 348 00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:34,960 Speaker 1: for new parks, nothing came of their work. The philosophical 349 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,919 Speaker 1: direction the Park Service took in its early years was 350 00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:41,359 Speaker 1: the result of the personal vision of its first director, 351 00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:47,440 Speaker 1: New Englander, Stephen Mather. The prime directive in Mather's criteria 352 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,200 Speaker 1: was that new parks had to possess scenery so extraordinary 353 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:57,040 Speaker 1: as to be of national interest. While scientists like Victor 354 00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:01,840 Speaker 1: Shelford were thinking of representative eCos systems. The Park Service 355 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:07,200 Speaker 1: still had the Mather scenery inertia to overcome, so as 356 00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,280 Speaker 1: the NPS began to look beyond mountains and canyons to 357 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,200 Speaker 1: heed the scientist's interest in the Great Plains, they concentrated 358 00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:18,439 Speaker 1: not on the rolling, grassy uplands most typical of the region, 359 00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:23,040 Speaker 1: but on the more dramatic ban lands and canyonlands country 360 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:29,640 Speaker 1: the plains erosional equivalents of the Colorado Plateau. The success 361 00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:34,840 Speaker 1: of Yellowstone had them thinking about animals too, about game 362 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:40,960 Speaker 1: parks like Africas, but scenery was always first. The problem 363 00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,480 Speaker 1: was that little on the Great Plains measured up against 364 00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,960 Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon or Zion. Thus, in the nineteen twenties 365 00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:53,280 Speaker 1: and nineteen thirties, the Park Service disappointed the ecologists by 366 00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:58,000 Speaker 1: turning down one proposal after another one area, though the 367 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,000 Speaker 1: South Dakota Badlands did set the planes on the road 368 00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:03,200 Speaker 1: eventually to a. 369 00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:04,920 Speaker 2: Sizable national park. 370 00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:16,160 Speaker 1: Local advocates had proposed the Yellow and Cream South Dakota 371 00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:20,280 Speaker 1: Badlands as a park as early as nineteen oh nine, 372 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:24,240 Speaker 1: since much of its acreage consisted of Indian lands left 373 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,520 Speaker 1: over from a lotmanth and parcels passed over in the 374 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:31,160 Speaker 1: home setting process. It was a good candidate for an 375 00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,760 Speaker 1: agency with no money, but it was a bad lands. 376 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,640 Speaker 1: Its sparse grasscover seemed too thin for wild herds on 377 00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:44,960 Speaker 1: the Yellowstone model at the time. The broadly experienced Roger Toll, 378 00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,160 Speaker 1: a man who would lose his life in a tragic 379 00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,520 Speaker 1: car accident a few years later, was the chief investigator 380 00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,920 Speaker 1: for New Parks. Told visited the area in July of 381 00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:01,040 Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight and within days decided that it is 382 00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,440 Speaker 1: not a supreme scenic feature of national importance. 383 00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,040 Speaker 2: The bad Lands, he explained to his Washington. 384 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,840 Speaker 1: Superiors, are surpassed in grander beauty and interest by the 385 00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:16,600 Speaker 1: Grand Canyon National Park and by Bryce National Park. Toll 386 00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,480 Speaker 1: would have had to tour Mars to find another Grand Canyon. 387 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,200 Speaker 1: Sixty percent of the bad lands had remained part of 388 00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,040 Speaker 1: the public domain, though, and when South Dakota agreed to 389 00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,600 Speaker 1: acquire and transfer to the Park Service ninety percent of 390 00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:38,520 Speaker 1: the remaining private holdings, Told proposed a consolation. He recommended 391 00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:42,200 Speaker 1: that the Service used the Antiquities Act, whose targets were 392 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:47,880 Speaker 1: usually landscapes of unusual archaeological or geological interests, to proclaim 393 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:53,080 Speaker 1: sixty eight thousand acres of the area a new national monument. 394 00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:58,560 Speaker 1: Congress approved bad Lands National Monument in nineteen twenty nine. 395 00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,640 Speaker 1: Eventually large to some two hundred and fifty thousand acres, 396 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,920 Speaker 1: it became the Great Plains largest chunk of public lands. 397 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,920 Speaker 2: When the monument opened in nineteen thirty. 398 00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:14,400 Speaker 1: Nine, bison were gone from it, pronghorns very nearly so, 399 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,360 Speaker 1: and across the Gray and Saffron Mounds, hunters had long 400 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:22,600 Speaker 1: before wiped out the famous local population of Rocky Mountain 401 00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:26,760 Speaker 1: big horns. All three species could be and were recovered, 402 00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:31,360 Speaker 1: but the bad lands sparse grass cover and small size 403 00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:36,640 Speaker 1: has kept it from becoming a Plain's Yellowstone. Something similar 404 00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,040 Speaker 1: happened with North Dakota's Little Missouri bad Lands, which the 405 00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:45,080 Speaker 1: NPS initially found too barren for a national park. At first, 406 00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:50,000 Speaker 1: local ranchers there vehemently opposed a park, but rancher opposition 407 00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,800 Speaker 1: swirled away with the dust Bowl and the Depression, and 408 00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:58,200 Speaker 1: the Park Service finally acquired the area in nineteen forty seven, 409 00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:03,120 Speaker 1: but as a history historical memorial park based on President 410 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:08,400 Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt's presence in the area, with its pronghorns and bison, 411 00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:13,880 Speaker 1: heard and eventually wild horses. North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National 412 00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:18,480 Speaker 1: Park came closer to the Great Plains Ecosystem Park Shelford 413 00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,880 Speaker 1: and the ecologists were calling for. But the park's two 414 00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:27,040 Speaker 1: units were small, barely seventy thousand acres total, and the 415 00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,760 Speaker 1: Park Service had promised that none of the big original 416 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:43,840 Speaker 1: predators like grizzlies or wolves would ever return. The public 417 00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,280 Speaker 1: lands reserved on the Northern Plains that would eventually have 418 00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:52,440 Speaker 1: the most promised as a catland like wild possibility began 419 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,680 Speaker 1: life modestly in nineteen thirty six as the Fort Peck 420 00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:01,840 Speaker 1: Game Range, initially managed by the Bureau row of Biological Survey. 421 00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,120 Speaker 1: The Survey had sent its well respected ecologist O. Loss 422 00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:11,000 Speaker 1: Murray to report on the area surrounding a damned reservoir 423 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:15,160 Speaker 1: the core of engineers was creating on the Missouri called 424 00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:21,360 Speaker 1: Fort Peck. Expecting Muri to suggest a waterfowl refuge, Murray 425 00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:26,040 Speaker 1: surprised his bosses by arguing that the broken badland studded 426 00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:30,080 Speaker 1: valley held much greater promise as a preserve for big 427 00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:33,560 Speaker 1: wild animals from small things. 428 00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:35,120 Speaker 2: Large results. 429 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,760 Speaker 1: By the nineteen seventies, what had now become called the 430 00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:45,600 Speaker 1: Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge was the second largest 431 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:49,360 Speaker 1: one in the lower forty eight, of a size that 432 00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:55,280 Speaker 1: made it a real possibility for modern rewilding with its 433 00:32:55,360 --> 00:33:00,520 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight Omnibus Parks Bill. That same day decade, 434 00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:05,680 Speaker 1: the Park Service upgraded both the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt 435 00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:10,720 Speaker 1: to full National Park status, along with wind Cave and 436 00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:16,120 Speaker 1: Saskatchewan's Grassland National Park established in nineteen eighty one, and 437 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:21,160 Speaker 1: eight National Grasslands. All these gave the Northern Plains at 438 00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:26,360 Speaker 1: least a start in recapturing the wildlife spectacle and ancient 439 00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:27,520 Speaker 1: poetry of. 440 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:28,640 Speaker 2: The American prairies. 441 00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,880 Speaker 1: I've already told the story in episode twenty two of 442 00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:40,719 Speaker 1: the NPS attempt to create a National Park of the 443 00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:45,840 Speaker 1: Plains on the Southern Plains around Palloduro Canyon, a sixty 444 00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,320 Speaker 1: mile long canyon carved by the headwaters of the Red 445 00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:54,080 Speaker 1: River as it slices through the Texas Panhandle. One thousand 446 00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:58,760 Speaker 1: foot deep roar of color, Palo Duro was certainly scenic 447 00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,440 Speaker 1: and vertical, but it wasn't scenic or vertical enough to 448 00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:06,680 Speaker 1: suit Roger Toll. Plus, it had long since gone under 449 00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,120 Speaker 1: private fence without a commitment from Texas to. 450 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:11,000 Speaker 2: Acquire the land. 451 00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,760 Speaker 1: It failed as both a National Park candidate in nineteen 452 00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,320 Speaker 1: thirty four and as one hundred and thirty five thousand 453 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:24,080 Speaker 1: acre National monument in nineteen thirty eight. Geologist Charles Gould 454 00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:28,040 Speaker 1: argued that Palo Duro, as he put it, is well 455 00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,759 Speaker 1: worthy of being made into a national monument. It is 456 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:36,440 Speaker 1: the most spectacular canyon carved by erosion anywhere on the 457 00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:40,680 Speaker 1: Great Plains of North America. But no one in Texas 458 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,560 Speaker 1: stepped forward to help with the two hundred and ninety 459 00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:49,560 Speaker 1: four thousand dollars roughly six point seven million today the 460 00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:54,160 Speaker 1: NPS needed in the nineteen thirties to acquire a Palo 461 00:34:54,239 --> 00:35:00,239 Speaker 1: Duro Canyon National Monument. Losing that, which ultimately would have 462 00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,280 Speaker 1: also become a National park was among the biggest misses 463 00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,520 Speaker 1: on the planes in the twentieth century. So the Southern 464 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:12,800 Speaker 1: prairies have ended up entirely lacking a National park. South 465 00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,720 Speaker 1: of the Arkansas River, there are a handful of National 466 00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:21,360 Speaker 1: Wildlife refuges and two small national monuments Albate's Flint Quarry 467 00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:27,080 Speaker 1: and the Texas Panhandle and Capulin Volcano in New Mexico. Today, 468 00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,960 Speaker 1: on the southern plains, only three point six percent of 469 00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:35,560 Speaker 1: the landscape is in public ownership here in the twenty 470 00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:40,400 Speaker 1: first century, in a country its nineteenth century explorers said, 471 00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:45,080 Speaker 1: seems particularly adapted as a range for buffalo's, wildcoats and 472 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:50,759 Speaker 1: other game. No great, preserved or rewilded landscapes exist on 473 00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:56,720 Speaker 1: the Southern prairies. 474 00:35:59,120 --> 00:35:59,920 Speaker 2: In our time. 475 00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:04,120 Speaker 1: Restoring the Great Prairies to their former glory is assuming 476 00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:09,360 Speaker 1: a different form than the last centuries grand national parks. 477 00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,759 Speaker 1: Since the turn of the twenty first century, this new 478 00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:18,600 Speaker 1: approach has conservation organizations like the Southern Plains Land Trust 479 00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:24,960 Speaker 1: in Colorado and American Prairie in Montana employing a market 480 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:31,319 Speaker 1: approach acquiring Great Plains ranches that they then work to rewild. 481 00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,120 Speaker 1: The Southern Plains Land Trust owns a forty five thousand 482 00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:41,799 Speaker 1: acre ranch called Heartland in southeastern Colorado, where it's now 483 00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:48,360 Speaker 1: removed all internal fencing and recovered bison, pronghorns, wild horses, elk, 484 00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:53,800 Speaker 1: and extensive prairie dog towns. Once five billion strong, prairie 485 00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,480 Speaker 1: dogs are today down to just one percent of their 486 00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,320 Speaker 1: former numbers, But a collegist find a ring correlation between 487 00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:05,600 Speaker 1: existing prairie dog towns and the remaining populations of iconic 488 00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:11,799 Speaker 1: prairie species like burrowing owls, peruginous hawks, golden eagles, and 489 00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:18,960 Speaker 1: endangered species like mountain plovers, swift foxes, and blackfooted ferrets, which, 490 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,800 Speaker 1: prior to mass poisoning of dog towns, preyed on prairie 491 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:27,719 Speaker 1: dogs the way wolves called elk. In fact, in October 492 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,000 Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, my wife Sarah and I had 493 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:35,799 Speaker 1: the thrill of helping to release thirty three endangered blackfooted 494 00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,920 Speaker 1: ferrets into heartlands prairie dog towns. There's more public land 495 00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,360 Speaker 1: on the northern plains, though, and the best hope for 496 00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,480 Speaker 1: a great prairie wild lands on the scale of the 497 00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,760 Speaker 1: Game Parks of Africa is there, specifically in the state 498 00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:56,840 Speaker 1: of Montana. Conservation biologists say that to work ecologically, a 499 00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,520 Speaker 1: Catlanesque Plains Park should cover at least two and a 500 00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:05,280 Speaker 1: half million acres the size of Yellowstone. And let's be honest, 501 00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:09,880 Speaker 1: fashioning something this grand is a conservation act on the 502 00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,920 Speaker 1: level of creating the first national parks in world history 503 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:19,120 Speaker 1: or passing a Wilderness Preservation Act, and America achieved both 504 00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,440 Speaker 1: of those in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 505 00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,320 Speaker 2: Do we still have that kind of vision? 506 00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,360 Speaker 1: There's something close to it although in our present political 507 00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,960 Speaker 1: climate it must have necessity take a different form than 508 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:37,879 Speaker 1: the federal actions that got us parks and wildernesses. The 509 00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:42,800 Speaker 1: bookends of a Grand Prairie Preserve emerge from President Bill 510 00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:47,360 Speaker 1: Clinton's two thousand and one proclamation of an Upper Missouri 511 00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:51,360 Speaker 1: River Breaks National Monument draped along one hundred and fifty 512 00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:52,640 Speaker 1: miles of that river. 513 00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,000 Speaker 2: Downstream of it is the Charles M. 514 00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:01,120 Speaker 1: Russell National Wildlife Refuge I mentioned own to a whopping 515 00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:05,680 Speaker 1: nine hundred and fifteen thousand, eight hundred and fourteen acres, 516 00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:10,759 Speaker 1: and in between those two vast public lands private ranches 517 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:17,759 Speaker 1: looking for buyers. American Prairie opened offices in Bozeman, Montana 518 00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,200 Speaker 1: in two thousand and one to see if the Rockefeller 519 00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:25,600 Speaker 1: family strategy of buying up private ranches to create Grand 520 00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:30,040 Speaker 1: Teton's Park might work on the twenty first century Great Plans. 521 00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,279 Speaker 1: The organization has money. There are big time donors on 522 00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,960 Speaker 1: both coasts, although the vast majorities of AP's donors are 523 00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:42,080 Speaker 1: small contributors, and it has an epic plan to acquire 524 00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,720 Speaker 1: a critical half million private acres in order to stitch 525 00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:51,360 Speaker 1: together the existing public lands along the Missouri into a 526 00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:56,840 Speaker 1: restored Great planes preserved that could approach three million or 527 00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,840 Speaker 1: more acres in size, larger even than Yellowstone. 528 00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:04,280 Speaker 2: Despite a rousing a firestorm. 529 00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:08,440 Speaker 1: In the conservative media and the present strongly conservative Montana 530 00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:13,960 Speaker 1: State government, major players, including National Geographic are all in 531 00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:20,080 Speaker 1: on American Prairies project. It envisions a rewilded great planes preserved, 532 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:24,920 Speaker 1: including not just bison, elk, and pronghorns, but the full 533 00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:30,000 Speaker 1: ecological array of animals and ecologies of the historic planes, 534 00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:36,439 Speaker 1: including grizzlies and wolves. American prairie, in other words, would 535 00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:40,360 Speaker 1: be what we never got a version of the Massai 536 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:46,880 Speaker 1: Mara or the Serengetti in America. Recreating our American Serengetti 537 00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,319 Speaker 1: means a reversing of the arc of recent history on 538 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,279 Speaker 1: the Great Plains that enrages some people, But it is 539 00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:00,120 Speaker 1: after all a realization of the Stephen Long idea from 540 00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,920 Speaker 1: eighteen twenty that the best future for at least pieces 541 00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,879 Speaker 1: of the plains is to preserve the region in the 542 00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,560 Speaker 1: state we found it. That state of nature, after all, 543 00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,520 Speaker 1: had ten thousand years of prior existence going. 544 00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:30,600 Speaker 3: For it, all, right, Dan, So in this episode, you're 545 00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,759 Speaker 3: standing up for the planes as a as a landscape 546 00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:40,600 Speaker 3: that should be celebrated. And I think you One of 547 00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,239 Speaker 3: the things that I really appreciated about this episode is 548 00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:49,200 Speaker 3: you describe driving across the plains and what you see, 549 00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,120 Speaker 3: and a lot of times, I think the impression that 550 00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:55,919 Speaker 3: it gives to folks is that time is standing still 551 00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:59,680 Speaker 3: out here. And you point out that there's this huge 552 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,279 Speaker 3: iron me between the impression that people have of a 553 00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,719 Speaker 3: timelessness on the great planes and the tremendous amount of 554 00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:12,160 Speaker 3: change that they've gone through that's invisible to us now. 555 00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:13,840 Speaker 2: And I kind of wonder. 556 00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,920 Speaker 3: If you think we'll ever wake up as a country 557 00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,839 Speaker 3: to the reality of that history, right. 558 00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:24,399 Speaker 1: You know. I wrote a book a few years ago 559 00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:29,080 Speaker 1: that I titled American Serengetti, and I did it very 560 00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:33,680 Speaker 1: deliberately to try to wake people up because I wanted 561 00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,600 Speaker 1: them to realize. I mean, we're all enamored on the 562 00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:43,000 Speaker 1: Nature Channel and PBS of the wonderful documentaries about you know, 563 00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:47,160 Speaker 1: the great game parks in East Africa and Tanzania and 564 00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:51,160 Speaker 1: Kenya and South Africa and elsewhere. I mean, and those 565 00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,560 Speaker 1: are kind of bucket lists things for a lot of people, 566 00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:59,480 Speaker 1: including me. Sarah and I are going to Kenya in 567 00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,800 Speaker 1: fact this October. Having tried to go in twenty nineteen. 568 00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:06,440 Speaker 1: It was going to be the summer of twenty twenty 569 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,600 Speaker 1: that happened to be the summer of the pandemic, so 570 00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:10,880 Speaker 1: we weren't able to go that summer, and are finally 571 00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:15,080 Speaker 1: going to get over to Kenya this coming fall. And 572 00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,520 Speaker 1: the reason I wanted to make that kind of analogy 573 00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:25,000 Speaker 1: is because of all of those quotes that I used 574 00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:30,200 Speaker 1: in the script of this particular episode in the nineteenth 575 00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,760 Speaker 1: century and even in the twentieth century after even after 576 00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:37,680 Speaker 1: some of the animals were gone, but the landscape, as 577 00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:39,880 Speaker 1: plains people put it, still had the hair on it, 578 00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:44,840 Speaker 1: The grass was still there, and so that topography still 579 00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:46,320 Speaker 1: had a kind of an appeal. 580 00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:47,520 Speaker 2: I wanted to. 581 00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:54,680 Speaker 1: Make the point with American Serengetti and with an episode 582 00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:59,760 Speaker 1: like this, that we Americans had one of the natural 583 00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:06,359 Speaker 1: marvels of the world, like East Africa, right here in 584 00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,319 Speaker 1: the near American West, the West, on the east side 585 00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:16,360 Speaker 1: of the Rocky Mountains, and we sort of myopically and 586 00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:21,440 Speaker 1: without very much thought, it seems, just frittered it away. 587 00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:27,480 Speaker 2: We destroyed all the wildlife. We deep buffalo dewolfed. 588 00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,920 Speaker 1: The entire countryside of the Great Plains that had so 589 00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:39,160 Speaker 1: inspired so many people. And then, unlike the mountainous West 590 00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:43,400 Speaker 1: are the Colorado Plateau or even the deserts of the 591 00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,920 Speaker 1: American West, all of which ended up getting a lot 592 00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:50,520 Speaker 1: of public lands, the plains looked to American policymakers like 593 00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:56,160 Speaker 1: the perfect place to plunk down farmers and ranchers, and 594 00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,120 Speaker 1: so we ended up privatizing most of that world, and 595 00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:05,120 Speaker 1: those two steps wiping out all the wildlife that had 596 00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:08,279 Speaker 1: been there, that had made it into an American Serengeti. 597 00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,160 Speaker 1: And then the next step of tearing up even the 598 00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:16,280 Speaker 1: grasslands themselves in many cases in order to produce farms 599 00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:22,120 Speaker 1: and ranches and privatize empires, made it really difficult for 600 00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:27,759 Speaker 1: us to sort of redress the historical error of not 601 00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:33,440 Speaker 1: preserving some of this Great Plains country as some semblance 602 00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:35,520 Speaker 1: of what it once had been. I mean, I try 603 00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,240 Speaker 1: to point out in this particular episode that it's beyond 604 00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:41,560 Speaker 1: ironic that the first call in American history for a 605 00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:45,840 Speaker 1: national park it wasn't in Yellowstone, it wasn't in Glacier, 606 00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:49,120 Speaker 1: it wasn't in Yosemite. It was for a national park 607 00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:53,120 Speaker 1: on the Great Plains. But we ended up instead with 608 00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:56,880 Speaker 1: the Great Plains being almost completely ignored by the great 609 00:45:56,880 --> 00:46:01,920 Speaker 1: movement to establish America's Western parks, and so we've only 610 00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:05,000 Speaker 1: in the twenty first century begun to, I think, circle 611 00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:09,160 Speaker 1: back and try to try to come up with some 612 00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:14,320 Speaker 1: sort of of new twenty first century solution to how 613 00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:18,560 Speaker 1: we get some rewilded part of the planes back again. 614 00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:19,839 Speaker 2: Yeah. 615 00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:25,239 Speaker 3: You, I think a lot of people when they imagine 616 00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:32,080 Speaker 3: the Western national parks like Yosemite, Grand Canyon, all the 617 00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:39,480 Speaker 3: Utah Parks, Yellowstone Glacier, it's like, I think there's sort 618 00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:44,080 Speaker 3: of an unconscious assumption like, yeah, that's exactly where the 619 00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,840 Speaker 3: park like landscapes are. Where else would they be, you know, 620 00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,759 Speaker 3: it's like these are natural settings for these parks to be. 621 00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:56,719 Speaker 3: But you point out in this episode sort of how 622 00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:02,560 Speaker 3: the site selection for National parks has been based throughout 623 00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,160 Speaker 3: the Park Service's history on sort of a changing set 624 00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:10,520 Speaker 3: of criteria that in some instances privileges certain landscapes over 625 00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:15,160 Speaker 3: others or maybe ecological values, Like there's been sort of 626 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,240 Speaker 3: an always shifting set of rules about what's the national 627 00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:20,960 Speaker 3: park and what's not. And it's not etched in stone 628 00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:25,160 Speaker 3: anywhere on a tablet that these places are fit to 629 00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:27,319 Speaker 3: be parks and these other landscapes are not. 630 00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:34,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, I try to provide the audience for this particular 631 00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:39,680 Speaker 1: episode with some sense of the history of that, and 632 00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:44,239 Speaker 1: it's pretty clear. In the early years of the designation 633 00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:46,359 Speaker 1: of parks, and of course we designate quite a number 634 00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,960 Speaker 1: of parks before we ever have a National Park Service 635 00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:53,080 Speaker 1: in order to kind of codify what sort of landscapes 636 00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,560 Speaker 1: we're looking for. But when we do have a National 637 00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,480 Speaker 1: Park Service, that happens in nineteen sixteen and we have 638 00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:02,600 Speaker 1: an initial director, Stephen Mather is his name. He's a 639 00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:11,080 Speaker 1: New Englander, very wealthy, Hervart educated New Englander who sort 640 00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:16,080 Speaker 1: of imposes his will on site selection for additional national parks. 641 00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:21,719 Speaker 1: What you start to realize is that in these early stages, 642 00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:25,920 Speaker 1: from the time that Yellowstone had been set aside down 643 00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,759 Speaker 1: through the creation of a park service, is that we 644 00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:31,560 Speaker 1: had looked for parks based on a kind of a 645 00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:35,960 Speaker 1: European model that centered around what was thought of as 646 00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,920 Speaker 1: the most scenic part of Western Europe, which was the Alps. 647 00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:43,480 Speaker 1: And so we were looking for mountain ranges that looked 648 00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:44,280 Speaker 1: like the Alps. 649 00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,000 Speaker 2: We were looking for in the more. 650 00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:51,560 Speaker 1: Arid parts of the West, at least really vertical walled 651 00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:58,279 Speaker 1: canyons because verticality was regarded as the sublime scenery. And 652 00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,280 Speaker 1: of course the Great Plains is anything vertical. It's basically 653 00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:06,319 Speaker 1: a horizontal landscape. And so that kind of model immediately 654 00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,239 Speaker 1: put the Great Planes, and a privatization has taking place too, 655 00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,600 Speaker 1: but that model put the Great Planes on a back burner. 656 00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:18,840 Speaker 1: And then when we finally start getting ecologists beginning to 657 00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,160 Speaker 1: weigh in and telling the Park Service or what you 658 00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,120 Speaker 1: need to do is you need to have some representative 659 00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:28,680 Speaker 1: pieces of different ecologies to preserve, to preserve American nature. 660 00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:33,480 Speaker 1: By this point many of the public lands parks had 661 00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:37,719 Speaker 1: been created, and since the Plains has been privatized, the 662 00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:41,920 Speaker 1: Park Service is now confronting, Wow, so how do we 663 00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:44,240 Speaker 1: actually get a park? If we want one on the Plains, 664 00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:47,319 Speaker 1: that means we're going to have to buy it, and 665 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:52,040 Speaker 1: we don't have an acquisition budget. Our Park Service has 666 00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:56,239 Speaker 1: always just created parks out of existing public lands, and 667 00:49:56,360 --> 00:50:01,800 Speaker 1: that then becomes the next big hurdle and an effort 668 00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:05,680 Speaker 1: to try to turn back towards the Great Plains and 669 00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,919 Speaker 1: begin to preserve some of those landscapes that are there. 670 00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:17,120 Speaker 3: Yeah, you allude in this episode when you're discussing American 671 00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:21,279 Speaker 3: prairie and this new model that's emerging here in Montana. 672 00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:26,440 Speaker 3: You allude in that discussion to the case of the 673 00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:30,760 Speaker 3: Rockefellers in Grand Teton National Park, and I think that's 674 00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:34,720 Speaker 3: a story that maybe is not as well known because 675 00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:36,800 Speaker 3: you look at that place and you think, well, of course, 676 00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,520 Speaker 3: this has always been a park. It's a postcard, you know. 677 00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:42,880 Speaker 3: But I wonder if you can tell that story in 678 00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:45,520 Speaker 3: a little more detail for folks that aren't familiar with 679 00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,719 Speaker 3: the role that the Rockefellers played in that. 680 00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,160 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean so Grant Teitan National Park obviously, 681 00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:53,840 Speaker 1: as you say, it's a piece of the West that 682 00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,960 Speaker 1: we would say, okay, that right, along with Yosemite and 683 00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:00,360 Speaker 1: Glacier and Yellow Zone, that is a part from the 684 00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:01,000 Speaker 1: very beginning. 685 00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:01,920 Speaker 2: Well, it's actually not. 686 00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:06,359 Speaker 1: It's a part of a forest reserve in western Wyoming, 687 00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:10,919 Speaker 1: and so the peaks themselves, the Tetons become a part 688 00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:14,319 Speaker 1: of the public lands. But in order to create a 689 00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:18,280 Speaker 1: national park there, you need some of the valley floor, 690 00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,760 Speaker 1: you need a longer stretch of the mountains, and much 691 00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:27,120 Speaker 1: of the country around the peaks themselves had been taken 692 00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:31,080 Speaker 1: up under the Homestead Acts. By ranchers. And so what 693 00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:36,359 Speaker 1: the Rockefeller family did, starting in the nineteen thirties was 694 00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:41,720 Speaker 1: very quietly, as ranches came for sale, they began buying 695 00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:45,720 Speaker 1: up the ranches around the Great Tetons and the Grand 696 00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:51,960 Speaker 1: Tetons and in the Jackson Hole Valley and quietly conveying 697 00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,800 Speaker 1: title to the National Park Service. I mean, it reached 698 00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:59,880 Speaker 1: the point in the nineteen forties where the ranchers realized 699 00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,279 Speaker 1: what was going on, and there was a tremendous kind 700 00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:07,319 Speaker 1: of pushback, some ranchers refusing to sell no matter what 701 00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:12,319 Speaker 1: the price was because they were steadfast against turning the 702 00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:16,040 Speaker 1: Titans and the Jacksonville Valley into a national park. But 703 00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:21,560 Speaker 1: the Rockefellers basically managed to get most of the lands 704 00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:25,399 Speaker 1: that went into Grand Teton National Park by buying up 705 00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,200 Speaker 1: private ranches. So that was kind of the model when 706 00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:34,920 Speaker 1: American prairie began imagining the possibility of Okay, here's this 707 00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:38,840 Speaker 1: big public lands that Bill Clinton has just created along 708 00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:42,560 Speaker 1: the Missouri River as a national monument. And we've long 709 00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:47,200 Speaker 1: had this now almost million acre size Charlie Russell National 710 00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,960 Speaker 1: Wildlife Refuge downriver, and here are these ranches in between, 711 00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:55,920 Speaker 1: many of which are being offered for sale, and so 712 00:52:56,280 --> 00:53:00,200 Speaker 1: let's do the same kind of thing in Montana the 713 00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,160 Speaker 1: Rockefeller family had done in Wyoming. 714 00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:04,520 Speaker 2: And I think that's part of. 715 00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:09,520 Speaker 3: Sort of the popular maybe it's a blind spot and 716 00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:12,359 Speaker 3: sort of popular discourse surrounding American Prairie is that this 717 00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:18,440 Speaker 3: isn't sort of a brand new invention. The Rockefeller story 718 00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,479 Speaker 3: is actually a sort of very insightful. 719 00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:24,320 Speaker 2: It's a precedent. 720 00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:24,960 Speaker 1: Yeah. 721 00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:30,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, And today, you know, we think of Grand Teton 722 00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:34,520 Speaker 3: National Park and we don't associate it with controversy. Is 723 00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:37,200 Speaker 3: how sort of short the historical memory is with that place. 724 00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:40,320 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, Randall. And I mean I first 725 00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:43,080 Speaker 1: heard of American Prairie in fact, when a friend of mine, 726 00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:48,160 Speaker 1: a historian named Bob Ryder, who had written about the 727 00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:52,319 Speaker 1: creation of Grand Teeton National Park, was invited by this 728 00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,359 Speaker 1: organization that was forming in Bozeman to come over and 729 00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:59,320 Speaker 1: talk to them about the creation of Grand Teeton Park. 730 00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:03,040 Speaker 1: So I remember, you know, having a con because Bob 731 00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:05,960 Speaker 1: and I he was one of my backpacking buddies for 732 00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:09,120 Speaker 1: many years, and we were off on a backpack and 733 00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:12,360 Speaker 1: I was saying, so, what are these folks and Bozeman 734 00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,359 Speaker 1: have in mind. He said, well, I think they're going 735 00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:16,600 Speaker 1: to try to do something kind of like what the 736 00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:17,640 Speaker 1: Rockefellers tried. 737 00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:19,200 Speaker 2: That's what they wanted me to talk about. 738 00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:24,839 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I was up on American prairie 739 00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:30,920 Speaker 3: two weeks ago helping out with a bison hunt, and 740 00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:35,600 Speaker 3: this is sort of a non sequoror or we're just 741 00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,839 Speaker 3: getting up, but it popped into mind because we were 742 00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:43,120 Speaker 3: talking about the Grand Teeton precedent up there and we 743 00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:46,480 Speaker 3: were watching the prairie dogs and it's one of those 744 00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,520 Speaker 3: prairie dogs are one of those animals you mentioned this 745 00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:52,160 Speaker 3: in the piece that they don't get the credit that 746 00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:58,359 Speaker 3: they deserve a sort of native fauna. But we were 747 00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,480 Speaker 3: watching him and I was thinking to myself, Man, if 748 00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:06,480 Speaker 3: these were African animals, that'd be the most popular animal 749 00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,640 Speaker 3: at the zoo, right. You think of like the meerkat, 750 00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:14,480 Speaker 3: and it's sort of just the the exoticism of that 751 00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:18,080 Speaker 3: animal gives it like a spark in your mind that 752 00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:22,840 Speaker 3: the prairie dog just doesn't seem to elicit. And I 753 00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,359 Speaker 3: don't know, I find sometimes when I kind of rearrange 754 00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:28,160 Speaker 3: the furniture in my head and try to take a 755 00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:30,839 Speaker 3: different perspective on what's right in front of me. I 756 00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:34,040 Speaker 3: get this new appreciation for it, and you kind of 757 00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,319 Speaker 3: begin to really see the prairie dog for what it is. 758 00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:41,640 Speaker 3: And I don't know, I think you went through that 759 00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:44,920 Speaker 3: experience in all your time living on the on the planes. 760 00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,480 Speaker 3: But I just wonder what more there is to do 761 00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:54,920 Speaker 3: to to rebrand some of our local serengetti, Right. 762 00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:58,480 Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that we in a lot of ways. 763 00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:01,680 Speaker 1: One of the reasons we're struggling with this today is 764 00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:07,480 Speaker 1: that because we didn't act the way, for example, a 765 00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:12,800 Speaker 1: colonial power like England did in Kenya and Tanzania, where 766 00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:18,319 Speaker 1: they moved to help these emerging governments establish parks to 767 00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:22,360 Speaker 1: preserve all the wildlife that they had. Because we didn't 768 00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:27,160 Speaker 1: do that here, in some respects, we allowed the American 769 00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:31,359 Speaker 1: public to sort of lose interest in a lot of 770 00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:34,400 Speaker 1: these creatures. I mean, when you read those accounts in 771 00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:38,200 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, people were fascinated by animals like prairie 772 00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:42,759 Speaker 1: dogs and blackfooted ferrets and swift foxes, and I mean 773 00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:47,600 Speaker 1: everybody was just you know, they were prairie fever in fact, 774 00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:51,480 Speaker 1: is the term that everybody used for a fascination with 775 00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:54,280 Speaker 1: being on the Great planes and seeing all these animals, 776 00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:58,279 Speaker 1: and because of the way our history played out, we 777 00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:01,360 Speaker 1: lost the sense of the magic of it, and so 778 00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:06,080 Speaker 1: along with the creation of the landscapes themselves, I mean, 779 00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:08,799 Speaker 1: we're kind of going to have to, I think, reacquire 780 00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:12,480 Speaker 1: the magic. And I think if American Prairie does succeed 781 00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:16,840 Speaker 1: in its grand vision of not just having buffalo and 782 00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:22,320 Speaker 1: elk and prong wars, but also having gray wolves, grizzly bears, 783 00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:27,760 Speaker 1: prairie dog towns, all of the complete kind of ecology 784 00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,480 Speaker 1: that so thrilled people in the nineteenth century, I think 785 00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:33,400 Speaker 1: we've got a chance to get it back. 786 00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:37,040 Speaker 3: Well, Dan, I'll keep my fingers crossed. 787 00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,040 Speaker 2: Yeah, me too, Randall, all right, thank you,