For the first time in roughly two centuries, wild bison are roaming an Illinois prairie. In 2023 C.E., a small herd of American bison was reintroduced to Nachusa Grasslands, a Nature Conservancy preserve in northern Illinois, marking a milestone in one of the longest-running grassland restoration projects in the American Midwest. The animals — once numbering in the tens of millions across North America — had been functionally absent from Illinois since the early 1800s C.E., hunted to local extinction as Euro-American settlement swept across the continent.
At a glance
- Bison reintroduction Illinois: The Nature Conservancy brought bison back to Nachusa Grasslands in Lee and Ogle counties, restoring an ecological role the species held for thousands of years before being wiped out regionally in the 19th century C.E.
- Grassland restoration: Nachusa Grasslands spans more than 3,800 acres of restored tallgrass prairie — one of the most endangered ecosystems in North America, with less than one-tenth of one percent of original Illinois prairie remaining.
- Herd growth: Since the first bison arrived at Nachusa in 2014 C.E., the herd has grown steadily; calves born on-site represent the continuation of a population that had been absent from Illinois soil for nearly 200 years.
Why bison matter to the prairie
Bison are what ecologists call a keystone species — their behavior shapes the entire ecosystem around them. As they graze, they create uneven patches of short and tall grass that different bird and insect species depend on. Their wallowing behavior, where they roll in the dirt, forms shallow depressions that collect rainwater and become habitat for amphibians and invertebrates.
Without bison, a prairie isn’t really a prairie. It’s an incomplete system. Decades of careful restoration work — removing invasive plants, conducting controlled burns, reseeding native grasses — laid the groundwork. But the return of the bison completed something that seed packets and fire could not.
The Potawatomi, Sauk, Meskwaki, and other Indigenous nations of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River corridor lived alongside bison for generations before European colonization severed that relationship. The near-total extermination of bison in the 19th century C.E. was inseparable from the forced displacement of those peoples, making this reintroduction part of a longer arc of ecological and cultural reckoning — one that remains unfinished.
A century-long effort bearing fruit
The broader bison recovery story is one of the more remarkable conservation achievements in American history. At their low point around 1889 C.E., fewer than 1,000 bison survived on the entire continent, down from an estimated 30 to 60 million. Early conservationists — including ranchers, zoologists, and Indigenous advocates — pulled the species back from the edge. Today, roughly 500,000 bison live in North America, though the vast majority are managed as livestock. Truly wild or ecologically functioning herds number far fewer.
Nachusa Grasslands represents a model for what ecologically functioning reintroduction can look like at the local scale. The Nature Conservancy worked with neighboring landowners, state regulators, and wildlife managers to make the project viable. That kind of multi-stakeholder coordination — messy and slow as it sometimes is — is increasingly the template for large mammal reintroductions across the U.S.
What still needs to happen
The Nachusa herd is thriving, but it remains small and geographically isolated. Genetic diversity over the long term requires connection to other herds, and the surrounding agricultural landscape makes natural dispersal nearly impossible. Expanding the acreage of protected and restored tallgrass prairie in Illinois — and across the Midwest — remains a significant challenge.
There are also ongoing conversations about what genuine restoration means when the Indigenous peoples who stewarded these landscapes for millennia have little formal role in contemporary management decisions. Progress is real, but the full picture is more complicated than a herd of bison grazing at sunset.
Still, watching calves born at Nachusa take their first steps on Illinois soil is not a small thing. It is a sign that ecosystems, given enough care and enough time, can remember what they once were.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Wild bison return to Illinois prairie after nearly 200 years
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
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- The Good News for Humankind archive on wildlife conservation
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