The Surprising Species That Everything Else Depends On | IN OUR NATURE (2) Die überraschende Spezies, von der alles andere abhängt | IN UNSERER NATUR (2) La sorprendente especie de la que depende todo lo demás | EN NUESTRA NATURALEZA (2) L'espèce surprenante dont tout le reste dépend DANS NOTRE NATURE (2) La specie sorprendente da cui dipende tutto il resto nella nostra natura (2) すべてが依存する意外な種｜私たちの自然 (2) 다른 모든 것이 의존하는 놀라운 종들 | 우리 자연에서 (2) De verrassende soort waar al het andere van afhangt IN ONZE NATUUR (2) Zaskakujące gatunki, od których zależy wszystko inne | W NASZEJ NATURZE (2) As espécies surpreendentes de que tudo o resto depende | NA NOSSA NATUREZA (2) Удивительные виды, от которых зависит все остальное | В НАШЕЙ ПРИРОДЕ (2) Doğamızdaki Her Şeyin Bağlı Olduğu Şaşırtıcı Türler (2) 万物赖以生存的惊人物种|在我们的本性中 (2) 其他一切都依賴的令人驚訝的物種|我們的本性 (2)

and lots of eyes. The wildebeests migrate, but their predators und viele Augen. Die Gnus wandern, aber ihre Raubtiere

don't. So that helps them get eaten less and moving gives wildebeests access to more food

than if they stayed in one place. Migration is why this population is so big, but even

a place as vast as the Serengeti, it's not infinite. Okay. So when there's plenty to

eat, you know, when the rainy season is happening, well, the bone marrow of those wildebeests das Knochenmark dieser Gnus essen, wenn die Regenzeit beginnt. comer, ya sabes, cuando la temporada de lluvias está sucediendo, bueno, la médula ósea de los ñus

is nice and fatty, but in the dry season, when there isn't as much to eat, bone marrow ist schön und fett, aber in der Trockenzeit, wenn es nicht so viel zu essen gibt, ist Knochenmark

gets kind of gross. And when scientists looked at the bones of most dead wildebeests, it se vuelve algo asqueroso. Y cuando los científicos miraron los huesos de la mayoría de los ñus muertos.

was pretty nasty inside. So they think that most wildebeests starved to death. Okay.

But some of them do get eaten by lions, hyenas predators.

Yes. Some lions are definitely having lunch, but predators are not what keeps this population

from growing. It's how much food there is to eat during the dry season. They aren't de crecer. Es la cantidad de comida que hay para comer durante la estación seca. No son

regulated from the top down. They're regulated from the bottom up, scientists call this kind

of population limit the carrying capacity. It's basically how much life and ecosystem. der Bevölkerung begrenzen die Tragfähigkeit. Es ist im Grunde, wie viel Leben und Ökosystem.

So The grass is regulating the wildebeests and

the wildebeests are regulating everything else.

Yeah. Yeah. And if there's too many wildebeests one year, then more of them die, and if the

numbers get too low, next year, there's extra food to go around the numbers come back up.

It's like a boom and bust economy. Yeah, exactly. And what is so amazing to me Es ist wie eine Boom- und Bust-Wirtschaft. Ja, genau. Und was für mich so erstaunlich ist. Es como una economía de auge y caída. Sí, exactamente. Y lo que es tan sorprendente para mí

is that this ecosystem is regulating itself. We're going to be telling a lot more stories

from this place. I don't think you can really appreciate the Serengeti without understanding

why it exists. And if the species at the middle of everything disappears, if their migration

is disrupted by climate change or other human development, would this whole place collapse

with them? I mean, Serengeti has rebounded once before, but without the wildebeests,

could it do it again? You know, there are so many aspects of this

story that remind me of the history of bison in north America, bison, bison, are like the

national mammal. Right? Right. Yeah. So bison are these Pleistocene giants that have been

in North America for over a hundred thousand years. But as settlers arrived between the

1700s in the 1900s, the US Army sanctioned these huge eradication programs targeting 1700 en la década de 1900, el Ejército de los EE.UU. sancionado estos enormes programas de erradicación de destino

the bison, but also in an effort to eradicate the people here, millions of these bison were el bisonte, sino también en un esfuerzo por erradicar la gente de aquí, millones de estos bisontes fueron

slaughtered many for just their coats or their skulls. And the population went from an estimated masacraron a muchos sólo por sus abrigos o sus cráneos. Y la población pasó de un estimado

30 to 60 million individuals to just a few hundred in the course of a couple of centuries.

That must've had some impact on the ecosystem. Yeah. It's hard to find a comparison and cows

graze too, but bison graze differently. They love grasses and they pass on most of the

other shrubs. So that increases biodiversity by providing food and shelter

for all the other animals. They create these huge wallows in these pits, compact soil. für alle anderen Tiere. Sie bauen diese riesigen Suhlen in diesen Gruben, verdichten den Boden. voor alle andere dieren. Ze creëren deze enorme modderpoelen in deze kuilen, compacte grond.

So they're, microhabitats for resilient plants, bison even impact other soil and plant processes Dus ze zijn, microhabitats voor veerkrachtige planten, bizons hebben zelfs invloed op andere bodem- en plantprocessen

through the ingestion and expulsion of their waste. Love a good poop story. Yeah. Good old species

feces note for you. Anyway, I can totally see where 30 million bison pooping would leave

a distinct ecological mark, a skid mark. Right. So anyway, there's a lot of different

groups that are trying to reintroduce bison to their historic ranges. But here's the bigger

question that I have, are these restoration efforts more about healing, a landscape and

ecosystem or about healing people? I thought we were talking about the biology and like,

you know, animals. Right. I mean, but we don't live in a vacuum,

Joe. It's about both. Okay. You're right. You're right. So prairie's used to be the Joep. Het gaat om beide. Oke. Je hebt gelijk. Je hebt gelijk. Dus prairie was vroeger de

biggest ecosystems in north America. They covered 170 million acres, 20

times bigger than the Serengeti. That is wow. Right. But by now prairie's have been so heavily

cultivated and developed. They're one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world, but

there happens to be one not far from where I am, outside of Chicago.

So we are standing in this green field, which is the site of a prairie restoration project

between the 1930s and 70s. This area looked nothing like this. We went to Midewin National

Tall Grass Prairie. Today, it's the only federally protected tall grass prairie in the United

States. But before it was a prairie, it was something else entirely. We are going to see

a war ammunition storage bunker. What is this doing out here? Well, before

Midewin was taken over by the US forest service, it was an army property. And it was used during

the middle part of the 1900s to manufacture and store military ordinance. They produced

them onsite and then they stored them in buildings like this.

Whoa. Wow. It is just like a giant cement tube. Yeah.

Sounds like a shotgun in there. That's so cool. And there used to be like 400 of these

bunkers. They stored over a billion pounds of TNT. It was a huge operation.

So what happened, once they took the bombs and the explosives out of the bunkers? What

did they do? So that is when the real work began. They

transferred the land from the Army to the US Forest Service in the 90s, but it was pretty

polluted and overgrown. So they had to start pulling the invasive species and reintroducing

native plants, but they were still missing one key element. We're talking about bison,

right? I mean, the bison are the real environmental engineers here. They are the prairie's Keystone

species, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Many of the plants and grasses, the birds and the insects that once called this area

home can't return until the bison do too. But it's all part of a big experiment at Midewin,

trying to understand these plant animal interactions and the model organism was not

easy to find. So we got word earlier today that the herd

of bison is somewhere in the area. Emily, I was told there would be bison in

this episode. We just got a call that someone has spotted

them over this Ridge. There are bison out there.

Yep. You can see them there. They're kind of just below the horizon there with those

trees. Oh yeah. I can see them. They're pretty far

out there. They are far out. Can you ask them to come a little closer? Uh, I could ask him,

uh, they, they do what they want though. That's fair.

Okay. So you take this incredibly polluted place and you get rid of the invasive species,

bring back the bison and you get prairie. I mean, that's part of it, but you have to

remember that bison didn't live here in isolation. They lived here alongside people for tens

of thousands of years. People that relied on the bison for every part of their livelihood,

for food and shelter, ceremonial objects, weapons. The removal of bison was a direct

assault on the people. The people who played a major role in the ecosystem to today, there's

a huge effort on part of indigenous nations to reintroduce bison to tribal land. And one

of those groups is the Intertribal Buffalo Council. The Intertribal Buffalo Council actually van die groepen is de Intertribal Buffalo Council. De Intertribal Buffalo Council eigenlijk

was originated in 1992, a group of people out of native American fish and wildlife services

decided why are we not doing something to return Buffalo to our tribes?

That's Arnell Abold. She's the executive director of the ITBC. And talking to her, you really

get a sense of how passionately she feels about this project.

We look at all of our tribes as individuals, but together we're force, you know, to be

reckoned with. There's so much heartbeat to it. And there's so much soul to it, you know,

and there's just that real connection to the Buffalo. But you know, our core has always

been returning the Buffalo to tribal lands. And in some ways they're helping with the

literal health of their kids. Diabetes is such a big disease on all of our

reservations and Buffalo meat, bison meat is one of the most healthy alternatives you

can eat. And that kind of puts it back, you know, back into our hands a little bit. If

we can do that What have been some of your proudest achievements. When we bring

new herds onto tribal land, if you can heal the Buffalo, the land and the people and make

that circular connection, imagine the changes that can happen. Maybe they can't happen today,

but we're seeing positive changes across Indian country, no matter what, maybe it's just adding

three Buffalo onto their lands. That's a change that's positive that gives that community

something to find a little hope in. It was actually super touching. Not only it

restoring the bison is helping the ecosystem. It's actually helping so many other things

as well. Yeah. And you know, it was cool. We were invited

to go see the bison on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. But unlike our visit to Midewin,

this, this was really different. The Oglala Sioux that manage the herd in pine Ridge

hold a Buffalo dance ceremony once a year, where they sing, they do dances and they honor

their spiritual connection to the bison. But when they heard that we were coming, they

offered to hold a special Buffalo ceremony just for us as a way of welcoming our visit

to the herd. And it was one of the coolest, most touching things that I've ever been in.

It's really meaningful because these are first relatives come out. They're nervous. Look

at the ground. They're going to come in afraid. They don't know what kind of energy that we

carry. Including us in the ceremony. It was a way

of demonstrating that we're bringing good vibes. And then Robert Goodman, the biologist

for Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation took us out to see the herd. There they are.

Yeah. I think I even see like a little baby bison out there. How many bison did you say

you had here? Today? Probably around a thousand.

So when you imagine sort of the historic numbers of like, you know, estimates of 30 million

Buffalo on the landscape, do you have some kind of idea for like the impact those numbers

would have had? I don't know. It's hard to wrap your mind

around herds that are majored in square miles. Instead of numbers, Buffalo are kind of known

as a Keystone species. They really do impact a lot of other animals like the prairie dogs.

They graze down the grass and that takes away cover for the predators of the prairie dog. Sie grasen das Gras ab, und das nimmt den Raubtieren der Präriehunde die Deckung.

So they like it. And then the prairie dogs actually, where they've cropped it off, they've Sie mögen es also. Und dann haben die Präriehunde dort, wo sie es abgeschnitten haben, tatsächlich

produced different types of plants that the Buffalo liked to graze, so it kind of works

back and forth. Antelope are known to rely on Buffalo too. In the winter time when it's

snow is really deep, they can't push the snow out in forage as well as the Buffalo. So they'll

follow right in Buffalo tracks and grays behind them. And you know, just about all of the йдуть прямо по слідах буйволів, а за ними - сірі. І знаєте, майже всі

species that you think of when you think of prairie species are related to the Buffalo

or rely on the Buffalo. Robert told me that the Buffalo will distribute

seeds of native plants that get caught in their shaggy coats. And even the hoof prints

that they leave behind holds water for prairie birds. So it's easy to see that with the removal

of bison, everything gets out of whack. I mean, that's amazing to think about, but these

are, these are relationships, ecological relationships that have existed for hundreds of thousands

of years. I mean, these things have evolved together. They've really, um, become to rely