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In This Issue:
From The President Trouble viewing this newsletter? Click here to view it online. To unsubscribe to this newsletter, please email Noel Twigg at noel@americanprairie.org By the Numbers: 250 - Average number of prairie dogs a family of four ferrets consumes per year. 61 - Miles per hour - how fast a pronghorn can run. 350 - Species of birds that call the Northern Great Plains home. 30 - Pounds - how much a male bighorn sheep's horns can weigh - as much as the rest of the bones in his body! |
A Message From The President
Thus far in 2007 we have had more than 200 children visit the American Prairie Reserve from surrounding towns and around the country. Our hope is to steadily increase the numbers of youth visiting the Reserve annually and to become a meaningful force to help kids reconnect with nature. To our surprise, our young visitors have been less enamored with the charismatic mega-fauna, such as elk and bison, and more intrigued with the smaller prairie species that scurry, hop, jump or slither. No matter what their favorite part of the prairie is, we are just happy to have them out on the landscape learning together and enjoying this huge natural wonder. This fall APF will be hosting our first Nature Essay Contest for students to get them writing about the outdoors and the importance it has in their lives. To use a phrase from Richard Louv’s Last Child In The Woods, we are trying to do our part to lessen the incidence of "nature deficit disorder" in today’s youth.
Sincerely, What We're Reading Now
Sounds of the Prairie Podcast Now Available on our Website! We are very excited to announce the release of our new Sounds of the Prairie page, now available on our website at www.americanprairie.org/sounds.html. Listen online to the sounds of prairie animals or subscribe to the APF podcast, available in both RSS and iTunes format. Once you’ve signed up for our podcast, you can expect to receive a new prairie sound monthly. Currently featured are the sounds of the American Bison and the Sharp-tailed Grouse.
Band of Bison Update
The herd continues to thrive. Good food, good company and plenty of space to roam. . . it is a great time to be member of the American Prairie Reserve herd. We expect our next installment of Wind Cave bison to arrive in November, increasing our herd from its current number of 45 to well over 50 members. Animals on the Prairie - Bighorn Sheep
Bighorn sheep populations declined greatly in the 1900s. Hunting, diseases and competition from domesticated sheep reduced numbers to only several thousand. Restoration of bighorn sheep has been actively pursued by many state and federal agencies since the 1940s. Bighorn sheep graze in and around the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, offering a unique opportunity to view these impressive animals at low elevation. Just Where in Montana is the American Prairie Reserve? Following our last newsletter we were asked the question, "Just where is the Reserve?" The Reserve is located in northeastern Montana, just north of the Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge and 60 miles south of Malta. We are currently working to produce a self-guided driving tour for the Reserve and surrounding areas and hope to have it available on our website in the coming month. (Reserve not to scale)
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Dear Friends of the American Prairie Reserve,
In the 1800s Bighorn Sheep populations were estimated to be in the millions. Lewis and Clark reported many sightings of bighorn sheep along their journey. In a journal entry from Capt. Lewis, May 25, 1805, he writes "...the places they generally collect to lodge is the cranies or c[r]evices of the rocks in the face of inaccessable precipices, where the wolf nor Bear can reach them, and where indeed man himself would in maney instances find a similar deficiency; yet those animals bound from rock to rock and stand apparently in the most careless manner on the Side of precipices of maney hundred feet, they are very shy and quick of both sent and sight."
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