Saving the American Bison: How an Iconic Keystone Species Is Shaping Modern Wildlife Conservation

Review of Aune, Keith, and Plumb, Glenn, Theodore Roosevelt & Bison Restoration on the Great Plains. The History Press, Charleston, South Carolina, USA, 2019. If a single species can be credited with inspiring contemporary wildlife conservation, the American bison (Bison bison bison) is the one. In that sense, the American bison can be considered a conservation keystone species. So the story goes, in the 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt went bison hunting in the Dakotas and saw that this species had been nearly hunted to extinction. He was so concerned about the wanton slaughter of this species that upon returning to his New York City home, he immediately invited several of his close male friends over for dinner to discuss what could be done. His friends included people such as George Bird Grinnell and American zoologist William Temple Hornaday. As a result of this dinner wildlife conservation meeting, the Boone and Crocket Club was founded (1887), as was the New York Zoological Society (1895, now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society, WCS), the American Ornithologists Union (1896), the Audubon Society (1904), and the American Bison Society (1905). Early environmental laws aimed a conserving wildlife, including the National Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), were created. Collectively, these actions set into motion what would become our contemporary values, policies, and protocols for wildlife conservation and management, and created a powerful foundation for endangered species recovery. Theodore Roosevelt & Bison Restoration on the Great Plains co‐authors Keith Aune and Glenn Plumb tell the story of American bison conservation through the work done by WCS, tribal partners such as the Blackfeet Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy, Sioux tribes, government agencies at state and federal levels, and non‐profit organizations, such as the National Wildlife Federation and the American Prairie Reserve. Few could present this rich narrative better. Aune, a WCS Conservation Fellow, and former chief of wildlife research for Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and Plumb, former chief of natural resources in Yellowstone National Park and chief wildlife biologist for the National Park Service, have strong science chops and many decades of “boots‐on‐the‐ground” expertise, working on contentious wildlife conservation issues in the United States, with a strong focus on the rural American West. The authors have created a compact, pithy volume that weaves together other voices to tell the bison story from nuanced perspectives. They set the context for the history of bison