Back to Nature and Ready for Guests in the Great Plains

OVER the past decade, as human populations on the Great Plains have thinned, many conservationists have seen an opportunity unparalleled since the frontier days of the 19th century brought towns to the region.
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Eco-Tourism
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Dan Koeck for The New York Times

Jean Legge, center, leads birders on a tour outside Valley City, N.D.
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Dan Koeck for The New York Times

A white pelican soars over a central North Dakota wetland
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Dan Koeck for The New York Times

John Hanson on his Logging Camp Ranch in the remote western part of the state.

Outdoors people, big landowners, travel operators and conservationists are now returning much of the Great Plains to its wild state, to a kind of American steppe. Conservationists are reviving native fauna and flora, and wolf populations are returning to the Yellowstone area. In the future, many hope, one giant fenceless region might be created across the entire plains that cover much of central North America east of the Rockies south to West Texas and New Mexico.

The idea of rewilding the West takes its inspiration from two professors, Frank and Deborah Popper. In an essay written two decades ago in the journal Planning, they suggested restoring the Upper Midwest to its native state, which they called the Buffalo Commons, and largely replacing agriculture in the region with eco-tourism.

While many Western conservationists do not agree with elements of the Buffalo Commons, preservation efforts have taken off. The American Prairie Foundation, a group dedicated to creating prairie wildlife reserves, has been buying up land in Montana and reintroducing wild American bison, which had largely vanished in the region. Another nonprofit group, the Great Plains Restoration Council is helping to preserve open land in South Dakota. Private landowners, too, have been buying land to return it to open space — Ted Turner, who owns some two million acres of Western land concentrated in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Oklahoma, has helped restore bison herds on his property.

The lions won’t be arriving anytime soon, but travel operators have already come, to take advantage of the return of the wild. “When my wife and I first started, two decades ago, we were one of only two operators in the state,” said John Hanson, owner of the Logging Camp Ranch in Bowman, N.D. “Now there are thousands.”

Off the Beaten Path, an operator based in Bozeman, Mont., was one of the first to take advantage of interest in rewilding. Among its custom and group tours, it runs guided six-day wolf-watching trips. “They know they just want to see wolves,” said Bill Bryan, a co-founder and chairman of the company, of his growing clientele.

As the plains have become depopulated, locals have also started sighting regular migrations of pronghorn antelope, elk, mountain lions, bighorn sheep and even bison.

Taking advantage of the animal repopulation, Upper Midwest outfitters are designing extended wildlife safaris. Twice a year, the American Prairie Foundation runs safaris across the land it has preserved, trips that at times include private plane flights across the open land. In the future, predicts Sean Garrity, the foundation’s president, Off the Beaten Path will run these safaris, and many local aviation outfits will begin prairie flights.

Though often overshadowed by nearby Badlands National Park, South Dakota’s Custer State Park runs backcountry jeep safaris. The trips put visitors within feet of herds of bison roaming in the park, as well as providing background on their habits and history. “They’ll get you right into the middle of the herd,” said Duane Lammers, a guide based in South Dakota.

Even without the jeep rides, it’s hard to miss the bison. On one trip to Custer State Park, I woke in the early morning, walked out of my tent and stumbled into a group of bison ambling slowly across the road.

Other guides focus on an airborne niche. In North Dakota, the guide Jean Legge leads trips to search for birds like the rare Baird’s sparrow, whose summer range is in the northern plains.

Ninety percent of her clients are not from North Dakota, Ms. Legge said, but they know that the state’s prairie habitat allows for breeding behavior not found elsewhere. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, among the largest American eco-tourism operators, also runs weeklong birding trips to North Dakota, Minnesota and other Midwest destinations.

Mr. Hanson’s operation draws game hunters, who know North Dakota is witnessing a revival of wildlife, but he also attracts visitors who want to go birding or merely want a more rugged experience on a real working ranch than they can get on a typical dude ranch.