The American Serengeti: The Surprising Power of Grass and Bringing Back the Bison

What if we could turn this, into this, and even into this? Large parts of North America were once covered with wild grassland as far as the eye could see. This natural wonder was described as the American Serengeti, where large iconic wildlife roamed the landscape. Now, one organisation is bringing it back. They are trying to create over 3 million acres of uninterrupted grasslands by buying up old cattle farms and restoring them to the wild habitats they once were. So we sent Cameron into the heart of Montana to help bring back the animals of the Old Wild West, and to discover the surprising power of grass. We are "Planet wild," welcome to Mission 19.

I. The Invisible Power of Wild Grass

When you think of grass, you probably think of this, bright green and freshly mowed, but a typical suburban lawn is actually far from being natural. Lawns like this, are monocultures of usually one invasive species, and were originally designed to mimic the fancy palace gardens of Europe. Because of this image, for a lot of us, grass is kind of just grass, it's boring, but really, grass is something else entirely, and we're heading into the Great Plains of Montana to show you a new reality. This is the wonderful world of grass!

Superpowers of Grass

Firstly, grass has a superpower. It's one of the most efficient plants at turning sunlight into food. So that means if you're a grazing animal here, the very ground you're walking on is literally a never-ending banquet of your favourite food. Secondly, real grass is not just one thing. Here in the wild grasslands of Montana, there as many as 60 different native species. Animals graze on this grass, unevenly, meaning that it exists at different lengths across the grasslands. Some species live in the long grass, while others thrive in the short grass. The grassland offers countless microhabitats and evolutionary niches to fill, and this led to an explosion of life here. Thirdly, what we see here is actually just the tip of the iceberg, and the rest is underground. The grass' root system extends to 15 feet or almost five metres below the surface, and these roots actually store more than a third of the Earth's terrestrial carbon, and that underground carbon is safe from wildfires, and won't be released back into the atmosphere. Here we can see the huge difference between the natural grassland root system and the roots of a ploughed crop field. Let's keep that in mind when trying to grasp at how big this ecosystem really is.

II. The Loss of the American Serengeti

I mean, the vastness of this place is kind of blowing my mind. But there is a bit of a strange feeling, it's almost like a, like a lonely feeling. It feels like something's missing. And indeed, something is missing from this picture. Only 200 years ago, this place could be described as the American Serengeti and extended across more than 240 million acres. Paintings from this time are a rare insight into what this actually looked like, a truly wild grassland, where giant herds of bison and elk stretched to the horizon. Indigenous Americans lived alongside them for thousands of years, but the arrival of European settlers changed everything. They pushed Indigenous Peoples of their land and hunted most of the animals to the brink of extinction. When further conquering and carving up the territory, they put up fences to demark ownership and keep livestock in place, disrupting wildlife migration, and destroying the prairie's unique biome. While many of us instinctively understand the value of protecting forests, most have yet to learn that restoring grasslands is of equally crucial importance. And so with more than 70% of America's prairies destroyed, grasslands have become the most threatened, and yet, the least protected biome in the world. 4% of tempered grasslands are protected globally, just 4%, that's it. We need to preserve these places so that we have something left!

III. Restoring the Prairie: The American Prairie Project

This is Danny, a wildlife restoration manager with our partner, American Prairie, founded more than 20 years ago, and having been described as one of the most ambitious conservation projects in American history, their mission is to restore that monumental beauty we know from those paintings from long-gone times. Since then, the land here was mostly taken over by cattle farming, but because it wasn't ploughed, the soil and its root systems are still intact. So it actually has everything it needs to become a canvas for nature again. American Prairie is buying old cattle ranches and locking down their vast land for nature protection. One range at a time, their goal is to create a huge nature reserve. Connecting these separate pieces of grassland creates the background of our painting. Sadly, the painting is still empty of its subjects the iconic animals of the Great Plains.

The Fastest Mammal: The Pronghorn

Now, what if I told you that out here on the planes behind me, there's the second fastest land mammal after the cheetah, and that its closest relative is the giraffe? Meet the pronghorn. With its incredible speed, it's built to outrun predators that actually don't exist anymore, like the American cheetah and the terrifying short-faced bear. But despite 99.97% of them being wiped out in the 19th century, the pronghorn lives on. They evolved to live in an uninterrupted open expanse, but their habitat has been fragmented by humans, and when they encounter a fence like this, it doesn't end well. Every time a pronghorn goes underneath this fence, it's probably losing a little bit of the hair on its back. Over time, that will wear off all the hair on their back, and it actually makes them more susceptible to hypothermia in the wintertime. And so you're not talking about one or two fences, but hundreds, thousands of these that they have to navigate. Over time, you see a breakdown of the entire migratory pathway or the ability for the species to migrate at all. And that's why we're removing these old, unnecessary fences, adding to the more than a hundred miles of fence that Danny and his team have already removed, and with the pronghorn running free, we're bringing them back into our real-life landscape painting.

The Unsung Hero: The Prairie Dog

We're in a very special place right now, and if we are lucky, we might get to meet the true unsung hero of the prairie. This is the legendary and adorable prairie dog, and we're in the middle of one of their towns, which are complex and often huge networks of burrows that they dig underground. As little engineers, they create habitats for more than a hundred other animals. Along with their endless appetite for grass, this makes them a hugely important keystone species. Today, there's probably something like 10 to 20 million prairie dogs, but historically, they would've been upwards of like 5 billion prairie dogs, that's a 99% reduction. This is really kind of catastrophic for the prairie ecosystem, not just for the prairie dog itself. As well as being hunted extensively, prairie dogs are really vulnerable to the Sylvatic Plague, which arrived in America around a hundred years ago through the global trade routes. They have no defence against the disease, which can wipe out a whole town, thousands of prairie dogs within weeks. Which is why we've got insecticide-laced grain bait. The prairie dogs eat the grain bait, it doesn't affect them, but it makes the prairie dog itself toxic to fleas, which are the carriers of the plague. Protecting them in this way, means that in time, their numbers will continue to increase as they return to their natural habitat, but there's still something big missing from this picture.

The Ultimate Icon: The American Bison

Okay, I'm beyond excited because we're out looking for the ultimate icon of the grasslands, the National Mammal of the USA and the most important piece in restoring our Vision of the Great Plains. It's the one and only American bison. It is just remarkable to witness them in their natural habitat of the grassland. Even from this distance, you can hear the grunting, the physicality. There were once as many as 60 million bison roaming the great plains of North America, and then in the blink of an eye, there were just 325 individuals left. I mean, you're talking about the prairies, maybe it's most-important species, a keystone species. They're truly builders and architects of the prairie. You can't really have a prairie without a bison. American Prairie has undertaken an incredible bison reintroduction effort here. It started almost 20 years ago, with just 16 individuals being released onto the prairie. Since then, they managed the herd to ensure its genetic diversity, and continually bring new members into the family. Now, the herd number's almost a thousand. The rutting season is the time of year when males compete for the opportunity to mate, often in dramatic battles. Witnessing this rutting behaviour is not only a remarkable spectacle, but it also means that the reintroduction project here is going well. They feel at home enough to behave as a bison behaves.

IV. Conclusion: Rebuilding the American Serengeti

There's almost nowhere in the Great Plains where bison are allowed to be bison, where pronghorn are allowed to run, where prairie dogs are allowed to live. We have a chance to do that at American Prairie. I could not agree more. That's why we're so excited to bring support to this epic restoration effort and provide $45,000 of community funding to help the team maximise their work's potential, contributing to everything from fence removal to protecting pronghorns, bison, and, of course, prairie dogs. Now, there is a protected area of 1.5 million acres already, but the plan is to keep building until we get to 3.2 million, which is what you need to support a healthy prairie biome. And none of this is possible without that key ingredient, the magical wonder plant that is grass, and each of these species lives in concert with the grass, and each is vital to the mission here. So with this ongoing work, we're putting that picture back together and rebuilding the American Serengeti. As the great Bob Ross one said, "This is your world." So if you're wondering how you can help restore it, consider joining "Planet Wild" as a backer.