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Presentation short abstract

Based on dissertation fieldwork in an English woodlands my presentation examines how bison have been enrolled as ecosystem engineering ‘climate heroes’. I show that what bison are at the reserve is continually negotiated through an array of technologies and infrastructures such as bridges.

Presentation long abstract

In efforts to restore herbivorous habitats in West Blean and Thornden Woods, Kent Wildlife Trust has introduced European bison (bison bisonus) to a reserved area. Idealised to be "climate heroes" as well as ecosystem engineers, the bisons’ introduction has received attracted widespread media attention as a pioneering attempt to achieve greater ecological resilience. Drawing on fieldwork carried out at the reserve, and engagement with publicly available information on the Kent Wildlife Trust website, my presentation examines the multifaceted presence of bison in the woodlands amid an entanglement of provisions, technologies and regulations.

I argue that the array of human-led interventions – including tracking collars, fences and bridges – are not merely spatial strategies determining where bison may venture in the reserve. Rather, they also mediate bison lifeworlds, raising critical questions about the future of human and more-than-human coexistence amid damaged natures. By spotlighting the construction of “bison bridges” as part of the reserve’s infrastructure, I suggest that such interventions have considerable ontological consequences for bison, qualifying and constraining their ecological identity. I draw on Burua’s concept of the infrastructuring of more-than-human life to argue that bridges, as examples of infrastructure themselves, facilitate how bison lives take shape. Along with other material interventions at the reserve, and the discourse of climate resilience surrounding their introduction, I ultimately show that bison are not only implicated in ambitions to redeem a degraded landscape, but also in techno-optimist attempts address the climate crisis.