Goodbye Montana, for now
Post by Montana Summer Program Student Trisha Markus
A mixture of emotions overtook me as I looked out the planes window. I am sad to be leaving Montana and that my summer learning is almost to an end. There was so much more that could have been learned and experienced. There just was not enough time to do it all. I am happy to be going home, to sleep in my own bed, drive my car, and to spend the rest of my summer hanging out with friends I tend to neglect while school is in session. And there is also Daniel, my best friend/boyfriend. I have so much to share with him, but the best way to do that is to show him. I am hoping to make a trip to Montana with him. But it will be a whole different experience, a cross country motorcycle trip. I’ll get to experience not only more of Montanan, but the rest of the U.S. as well.
The long ride home gave me time to think about the trip as a whole. We were told to concentrate on the human-natural system that forms the Great Plains. It seemed like from the start that the human part of the system was destructive and the natural part was always trying to repair itself from the human system. But what I have come to find is that, even if humans are destructive, not all of it is as bad as it seems.
European settlers came took this land from the Native Indian tribes, forced them into small reservations, and exposed them to deadly diseases that caused civilizations to disappear. Millions of bison, prairie dogs, passenger pigeons, and locus were killed; exterminating the pigeons and loci. European cattle replaced the American Bison and countless of invasive plants and animals were introduced disturbing the ecological niche of the native species. As time went on and technologies and populations advanced, dams were built, water tables drained, lands tilled, and natural resources are being exploited from the heart of the Earth.
Most of the damages we have done to the Great Plains will not be recoverable. Especially if the land has been tilled. Restoration efforts can be done, but the soil will never be the same and to return back to its original state may never happen. Some of the alterations to the Great Plains may not be as horrible as it seems to be. I have been harsh at thinking ranching was horrible; that cattle is bad for the land and bison should be the rulers of the plains. Realistically, with humans present as we are currently, bison will never be able to be restored to their original range. The Great Plains would be in a much more disastrous state if cattle did not replace bison. A world without the Great Plains will alter the species across the world. Ranchers help keep the prairie a prairie through cattle grazing.
The majority of today’s ranchers are friendlier to the environment than what is believed (at least by me). Ranchers currently hold the key to keep the Great Plains in a state that keeps it a prairie. They are currently making an effort to prevent sage grouse from being listed as an endangered species. Ranchers have an incentive to prevent rights to their own property to have restriction for grazing. The restrictions may prevent them from ever using that portion of property to graze causing them to loose income. It will also leave portions of the land from being grazed, which is crucial for the prairie. Without grazing the prairie will disappear and evolve into something else; whether it be a desert or a hardwood forest. The absence of the prairie will destroy key habitat for not only prairie species, but also migratory shorebirds that use the area to breed. The loss of these shorebirds will affect not only the Great Plains but also the ecosystems across the world.
Ranchers play an important role that they are under appreciated for. There is also a lot more science into raising cattle than what I originally thought. They need to calculate nutrition content of the different grasses on the range, the average daily gain of their calves, ensure their feed supplements in the winter will sustain their livestock. The cattle also have better health care than I do. They get constant check-ups and have to be current on all of their vaccinations. These cattle are taken care of until they go to the processing plant after the feed lot, then to the homes of millions of people.
I also cannot pretend that all conservationists are good. They may have good intentions, but those that think that the prairie will be better with strict grazing regulations or can survive without cattle grazing has not considered the important role ranchers have. Strict regulations get put in place from ranchers who do not care for the land, which hurt the ranchers who do good. And the conservationists who want to work with the ranchers get overshadowed by those who want to kick ranchers off the land. There are always two sides to every story, the one that is the most extreme tends to overshadow the truth.
The time I spent in Montana was time that opened my eyes more to the human connection with nature. The connection that may not seem natural and it might be damaging. As much as we have advanced as a species and create more technologies that further separate us from the animal kingdom; we will always be connected to nature. Even the man that has never stepped foot in the woods still relies on the resources Montana had to offer. It is our responsibility to protect the species of these unique ecosystems while we extract resources for human consumption. We can make nature work with us, we have been doing it for centuries. A better job of it just needs to be done to insure we do not screw it up and create our own extinction.
A mixture of emotions overtook me as I looked out the planes window. I am sad to be leaving Montana and that my summer learning is almost to an end. There was so much more that could have been learned and experienced. There just was not enough time to do it all. I am happy to be going home, to sleep in my own bed, drive my car, and to spend the rest of my summer hanging out with friends I tend to neglect while school is in session. And there is also Daniel, my best friend/boyfriend. I have so much to share with him, but the best way to do that is to show him. I am hoping to make a trip to Montana with him. But it will be a whole different experience, a cross country motorcycle trip. I’ll get to experience not only more of Montanan, but the rest of the U.S. as well.The long ride home gave me time to think about the trip as a whole. We were told to concentrate on the human-natural system that forms the Great Plains. It seemed like from the start that the human part of the system was destructive and the natural part was always trying to repair itself from the human system. But what I have come to find is that, even if humans are destructive, not all of it is as bad as it seems.
European settlers came took this land from the Native Indian tribes, forced them into small reservations, and exposed them to deadly diseases that caused civilizations to disappear. Millions of bison, prairie dogs, passenger pigeons, and locus were killed; exterminating the pigeons and loci. European cattle replaced the American Bison and countless of invasive plants and animals were introduced disturbing the ecological niche of the native species. As time went on and technologies and populations advanced, dams were built, water tables drained, lands tilled, and natural resources are being exploited from the heart of the Earth.
Most of the damages we have done to the Great Plains will not be recoverable. Especially if the land has been tilled. Restoration efforts can be done, but the soil will never be the same and to return back to its original state may never happen. Some of the alterations to the Great Plains may not be as horrible as it seems to be. I have been harsh at thinking ranching was horrible; that cattle is bad for the land and bison should be the rulers of the plains. Realistically, with humans present as we are currently, bison will never be able to be restored to their original range. The Great Plains would be in a much more disastrous state if cattle did not replace bison. A world without the Great Plains will alter the species across the world. Ranchers help keep the prairie a prairie through cattle grazing.
The majority of today’s ranchers are friendlier to the environment than what is believed (at least by me). Ranchers currently hold the key to keep the Great Plains in a state that keeps it a prairie. They are currently making an effort to prevent sage grouse from being listed as an endangered species. Ranchers have an incentive to prevent rights to their own property to have restriction for grazing. The restrictions may prevent them from ever using that portion of property to graze causing them to loose income. It will also leave portions of the land from being grazed, which is crucial for the prairie. Without grazing the prairie will disappear and evolve into something else; whether it be a desert or a hardwood forest. The absence of the prairie will destroy key habitat for not only prairie species, but also migratory shorebirds that use the area to breed. The loss of these shorebirds will affect not only the Great Plains but also the ecosystems across the world.
Ranchers play an important role that they are under appreciated for. There is also a lot more science into raising cattle than what I originally thought. They need to calculate nutrition content of the different grasses on the range, the average daily gain of their calves, ensure their feed supplements in the winter will sustain their livestock. The cattle also have better health care than I do. They get constant check-ups and have to be current on all of their vaccinations. These cattle are taken care of until they go to the processing plant after the feed lot, then to the homes of millions of people.
I also cannot pretend that all conservationists are good. They may have good intentions, but those that think that the prairie will be better with strict grazing regulations or can survive without cattle grazing has not considered the important role ranchers have. Strict regulations get put in place from ranchers who do not care for the land, which hurt the ranchers who do good. And the conservationists who want to work with the ranchers get overshadowed by those who want to kick ranchers off the land. There are always two sides to every story, the one that is the most extreme tends to overshadow the truth.The time I spent in Montana was time that opened my eyes more to the human connection with nature. The connection that may not seem natural and it might be damaging. As much as we have advanced as a species and create more technologies that further separate us from the animal kingdom; we will always be connected to nature. Even the man that has never stepped foot in the woods still relies on the resources Montana had to offer. It is our responsibility to protect the species of these unique ecosystems while we extract resources for human consumption. We can make nature work with us, we have been doing it for centuries. A better job of it just needs to be done to insure we do not screw it up and create our own extinction.
