‘Rewilding the West’ for Eco-Tourists

The Great Plains may be regarded as something of an “emptied prairie,” at least in my under-appreciated childhood home of North Dakota, but conservationists are transforming the land into an American steppe wonderland for nature lovers, Joshua Kurlantzick writes in The New York Times. The revived prairie is already attracting thousands of tourists keen on prairie wildlife safaris to spot American bison, mountain lions and pronghorn antelope.

I love it.

I just wish we would have thought of this 20 years ago, when I spent my teen years in eastern NoDak thinking that my thrill-seeking options were limited to riding oil rigs and cranking up Journey while driving along yellowy flatlands almost swallowed up by the big sky. I would have dug a bison safari.

Photo by Nicholas_T via Flickr (Creative Commons).

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