Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
The paths of grizzly bears and humans often collide, with fatal consequences for both parties. Despite protected lands such as national parks, the former’s survival depends upon establishing roaming corridors across private land and highways. The Vital Ground Foundation is doing just that.
For more than 12,000 years, the Intermountain West’s Native peoples have called the lands known as Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks “home.” This program explores modern Indigenous perspectives on these great wilderness areas and explores the cultural divide that separates modern times from the not-so-distant past.
After centuries of fear and superstition, research has given the wolf a new image as a social creature with an indispensible role in ecosystems. Unfortunately, wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains have been removed from the endangered species list. The Druid Pack of Yellowstone National Park symbolizes the rise and fall of this much maligned predator.
The supernatural appearance of White Buffalo Calf Woman tells of her divine revelations to the Lakota people regarding the Seven Sacred Rites to bring about spiritual rebirth and world harmony.
The environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” as a method for natural gas drilling investigated recently by ProPublica and displayed in the documentary film Gasland, have led to a nationwide backlash against this dangerous fossil fuel touted as a “clean burning alternative to oil.”
The bison slaughter is proposed to appease the intractable and unreasonable demands of Montana’s livestock industry to zero tolerance for native bison on Montana soil. All of this is justified in the name of controlling brucellosis, a disease that can cause domestic livestock to abort their first calf.
Fifteen years have passed since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and the results are in. The controversial experiment has been a stellar success. Essay by Chip Ward.