A Message From The President

Dear Friends of the American Prairie Reserve,

Tonight’s forecast for the American Prairie Reserve is twenty-two degrees below zero and possibly much colder given the wind chill factor. However, the bison, elk, pronghorn and other prairie creatures are doing just fine as they are extraordinarily well-designed to thrive in both extreme heat and extreme cold. We human beings at APF are admittedly limiting our time outdoors this week, but our efforts to build this reserve are definitely full steam ahead. A two-minute podcast depicts the highlights of WWF Senior Fellow Kyran Kunkel’s collaboration with agency partners to net gun, radio collar and release more than twenty pronghorn in an effort to study their migration, potentially the longest in the lower 48 states. Our new bison from Wind Cave National Park will soon join our existing herd who have been patiently waiting for them to emerge from APF’s new-arrivals holding facility. We are also this month pleased to announce two new additions to APF’s National Council, Bill Lively and David Quammen, who are profiled below. So far the winter is full of activity on the Reserve and at the Foundation. Please enjoy this update, and I hope to see you on the prairie sometime soon.

Sincerely,

Sean Gerrity
APF President

What We're Reading Now
NO WAY HOME: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations by David S. Wilcove

APF Science Advisory Council member and Princeton University professor David Wilcove’s new book explores the fascinating world of wildlife migrations. Scientists’ worldwide tracking of migrations is becoming increasingly sophisticated, including putting tiny transmitters on dragonflies in order to follow them for hundreds of miles! David’s book offers insights on why migrations are vitally important, why many are in peril and what human beings can do to help. While visiting with David at Princeton last month, Dick Dolan and Alison Fox of APF discussed with him migrations germane to the American Prairie Reserve, including pronghorn which annually travel hundreds of miles north to Canada, and Swainson’s hawks which, in winter, travel from Montana south nearly 8000 miles to Argentina. David has tentative plans to visit the American Prairie Reserve in 2008 to enjoy spring birding opportunities.

APF Welcomes Alison Fox

Alison joined APF as our Partnership-Marketing Manager in November 2007. Alison recently received her MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, where she concentrated her studies in marketing and nonprofit management. Prior to business school, she held roles in marketing and communications at RightNow Technologies. In her role at APF, Alison is directing marketing initiatives, overseeing and supporting our institutional partnerships and serving as a liaison with our National Council and Scientific Advisory Council members. Originally from Vermont and a previous resident of Bozeman, Alison and her husband moved back to Montana this fall after spending the summer (and their honeymoon) backpacking through wilderness areas across the western U.S.

APF Science Partner World Wildlife Fund Initiates Pioneering Pronghorn Study

On January 9, 2008, a joint team from World Wildlife Fund, Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and University of Calgary initiated fieldwork on a collaborative study of pronghorn ecology and conservation planning in the international trans-boundary region of northern Montana and southern Canada. They located groups of pronghorn by plane, and then fired a net from a helicopter to capture them. The team met their goal of fitting 22 females with GPS radio collars.

The project will examine population and habitat ecology of pronghorn, assessing impacts of habitat fragmentation and human infrastructure and activities, especially energy development on pronghorn ecology, leading to improved land use management and a conservation design for the northern sagebrush steppe of the northern Great Plains eco-region. Scientists will download GPS data from collars when they release from the animals in one year and can also remotely download GPS locations. While the collaring work took place just north of the American Prairie Reserve, some of this population, including collared animals, may use winter range in the APR. The APR is important year-round habitat for pronghorn and will figure prominently in the conservation area design resulting from this work.

Check out exciting footage of the collaring from Steve Hargreaves by visiting a podcast on our website: www.americanprairie.org/sights.html

Photo: www.hargreavesphoto.com

National Council Update
Introducing David Quammen and Bill Lively

David Quammen is an award-winning science, nature and travel writer whose work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, Outside, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Book Review. He has published more than ten books on science and nature including his latest, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution. David’s travels have taken him to every continent on the globe, often in a quest to understand and write about very complex conservation efforts involving wildlife and its habitat. He brings to APF an extraordinarily rich and unique perspective in conservation stemming from innumerable experiences in Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, Australia and many other locales. Quammen lives in Bozeman, MT, with his wife, Betsy.

Bill Lively is the founding President and CEO of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation and, since 2000, has been responsible for managing the foundation’s operations and the campaign to raise $338 million to design, construct and equip the venues to compose the center. To date, the campaign has raised $277 million. Bill spent twenty-five years on the faculty and in the administration of Southern Methodist University, serving the last seven years as the University’s Vice President for Development, Public Affairs, Alumni Relations and Lecture Programs. Bill’s more than twenty five years of experience raising funds for very ambitious projects is already proving to be of great value to APF’s efforts to create and sufficiently endow the American Prairie Reserve. Bill lives in Dallas, TX, with his wife, Mickey.

Coming in the next issue: APF welcomes Dorothy Bradley and George Horse Capture, Jr. to the National Council.

Thank You All for a Wonderful and Successful 2007

This past year has been an amazing one for our organization. We have made large strides toward our goal of creating a fully functioning prairie-based wildlife reserve. Your support is making this possible.

If you are in need of a duplicate tax receipt for your 2007 gift to American Prairie Foundation, please contact Noël Twigg by phone at (406) 922-0776 or via email at noel@americanprairie.org. Again, we thank you for your support!