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New Frontiers in North American Bison Conservation: Exploring the Human Dimensions
Day:
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Ballroom D
Session Type: Symposium
Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Ballroom D
Session Type: Symposium
Organizer(s): Rebecca Garvoille, Ph.D., Department of Conservation and Research, Denver Zoo; Keith Aune, Wildlife Conservation Society
Abstract Iconic symbols of the North American West, plains bison (Bison bison bison) and woods bison (Bison bison athabascae) play important socio-ecological roles in maintaining the intact and immense grassland ecosystems that once spanned the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico. Yet, bison remain imperiled as ecosystem engineers and native prairie species. Across the West, bison’s marketability as a meat commodity is often prioritized over the preservation of their ecological roles, their access to large landscapes and their conservation values for broader publics. Fewer than 4% of the 500,000 plains bison today are found in herds primarily managed for conservation purposes (e.g. ecological and public benefit). In today’s changing West, with accelerating amenity migration and population growth across urban and rural landscapes, bison conservation is as much a social as an ecological issue. In fact, bison conservation initiatives reflect the broader conservation debate about where and on which landscapes keystone species belong in the contemporary West. Thus, conservationists need to understand how human communities across urban and rural sites and scales understand, value and experience bison in a changing West in order to create socially-responsive and socially relevant bison conservation programs and public campaigns. This symposium explores the ways in which systematic social science is developing a broader scientific understanding of the human dimensions of bison conservation and how these findings are being applied to enhance conservation education, policy and management capacities to preserve bison across North America. Speakers will present case studies illustrative of the broader conservation debate about where and on which landscapes bison as keystone species belong. Speaker talks will followed by an interactive panel-audience discussion about the symposium theme.
Sponsored by the Social Science Working Group