>> Bison are back in Kane County after a 200 year hiatus.

>> That's thanks to a partnership between the county's Forest Preserve District and Chicago's American Indian Center.

The reason tablets presence of the 6 Humpback Bovines has both ecological and cultural significance.

Our Patty, what Lee joins us now with more along with American Indian Center.

President Jessica walks first, who's an enrolled member of Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin.

Thank you both for being here.

We appreciate it.

an exciting story.

All right.

So this homecoming, this is 3 years in the making.

How did it get started?

>> Well, there are quite a few conservation herds in Illinois, including at places like midday.

We National Tallgrass Prairie land managers like the Forest Preserve district.

This is kind of the next step in a natural progression for grassland restoration.

And they had actually gone to the folks in Cook County in gotten a funding referendum passed.

So this is kind of a promise that they had made, although they were originally thinking of this exclusively from ecosystem restorations standpoint, I will say they said they saw Ken Burns, American Buffalo documentary and realized they needed to press pause on their project.

Rethink it and reach out to members of the Native American community and make sure that they were involved in bringing the bison that that's very cool to see a first my feet off doing a story that use euro scientists freezing that Well, you Jessica, the American Indian Center is now taking stewardship of the herd you know, in a lot of indigenous nations in the area have a strong connection to bison.

And of course, you know, they're near extinction.

Coinciding with a lot of violence against Native Americans.

What does it mean to be a part of their revival?

get emotional about this, but it is.

>> Literally like even me as a Menominee person.

We've just reclaimed that piece of our history.

So as an indigenous person, Levy and >> the city struggling to be connected to my culture, being able to do this for our community is life changing.

It is emotional it's impactful.

It's intentional and it's something never dreamed we could able to do for our community and we doing it and it's so amazing and it's really powerful to see.

thank you for for sharing that with us.

>> You know, Patty, Bisons, they're considered a keystone species.

And what what kind value do they bring to the prairie?

Look, keystone species is kind of the one that all things kind of cascade from.

So they people like to say, you know, the prairie evolved with bison bison involved with the prairie and without Bison Prairie isn't really a prairie.

And so from there, while we habits to the Beatles that prefer to eat for lack of to the birds that might, you know, ground some of their hair to build Nas.

All these other things come back with the bison.

So it'll be fascinating.

And that's part of what the American Indian Center is going to be helping monitor what kind of changes are happening on the prairie there in King County yet.

us about that.

So our community engagement quarter, Denise, She's actually working on a community science program.

>> That will again monitor the changes monitor how you know the prairie changes with their presence and how they adapt to the prairie.

So it's, you know, basically we're trying to understand their habits as well as part of our process of reconnecting is learning with them.

And so Denise or be in charge of a lot of that programming that happens not only just for our community members, but for everybody to come out and learn with us.

>> Yeah.

So there's, you know, both sort of the citizen scientist aspect of it.

And then there's also, as you mentioned, the cultural traditions helping United folks in an urban environment.

You know, reconnect with some of the cultural traditions about bison.

How do you hope to help indigenous community members, you know, bond with these animals well, there's a lot of hopes there.

But I the gist of it is like, again, I've said this before.

You know, we live in a concrete jungle.

>> Where we can go out and put our feet on the prairie and we don't get the opportunities to connect with our plant and animal relatives.

So, but, you know, student is heard this gives us opportunity to provide those experiences for community members and to help them connect with their culture.

It's again, you know, living far away from our reservations.

There's a lot of disconnection that happens there.

So this is one major step towards helping community members feel connected whether their tribe has a Buffalo history are not really.

I mean, we all identify with you know, but for relatives, no matter what tribe we come from.

So this is just a good way to put it into practice to and create those connections.

Very exciting to see this project become a reality.

And I'm sure there's going to be much more in the years to come.

Absolutely.

Hattie Whitley, Jessica walks first.

Thank you Thanks, Nick.

Thank you.