| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 37.4

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 37.4 | The History Cooperative

*To Save the Wild Bison: Life on the Edge in Yellowstone.* By Mary Ann Franke. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. xx + 328 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. $29.95.)
Mary Ann Franke has a seemingly simple goal: to explain why so few bison exist in today's wilderness and to chronicle efforts to preserve wild bison. While the near extermination and then the recovery of bison in the last two hundred years have a great deal to do with economics, environmentalism, and science, bison decline and restoration are as much about politics, emotion, and cultural values.	1
Since its creation, Americans have idealized Yellowstone's wilderness, envisioning a landscape untarnished by human hands. Those conceptions gradually changed as officials increasingly influenced park wildlife and habitat. The story of Yellowstone bison reveals that "wildlife management" is a contradiction in terms. Perhaps no park and no animal (aside from wolves) have been more fought over for so long. As Franke points out, bison management is about human mastery of nature. The problem is that we frequently don't understand the limits of our control and ability to foresee if our intervention "will be desirable in the long run and will reduce the need for future interventions" (p. 271). In the face of disruption and imbalance, Americans maintained belief in the "balance of nature." Whether wielding science or cultural traditions, we still struggle to understand that "balance" is a human creation.	. . .

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