Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Restoring Human-Wildlife Coexistence in Working Landscapes

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research.

NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields.

Under the sponsorship of Dr. Julia Haggerty at Montana State University, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the implications of restoration initiatives for people in working landscapes. After more than a century of absence, buffalo (Bison bison) are returning to landscapes across the Great Plains.

While their return promises to restore grassland ecosystems and revitalize Tribal communities, it also raises conflict on working lands managed for cattle grazing, contributing to low social tolerance that impedes restoration and dilutes its potential benefits. The goal of this project is to explore and develop strategies to enable coexistence between bison and people on working landscapes in Montana, where Tribal and non-Tribal communities with livestock-based economies are navigating the challenges of learning to live with wild bison.

Building on existing relationships with diverse practitioner and academic partners, including Tribal organizations and conservation NGOs, the project asks: 1) how are rural and Tribal communities in Montana navigating an expanding human-bison interface in working landscapes; and 2) what strategies could effectively advance coexistence between wild bison and people to support resilient rural food systems and Tribal sovereignty? Findings reported in academic and public research outputs will promote the progress of restoration science and directly inform ongoing bison restoration and stewardship efforts, supporting the wellbeing of rural and Tribal communities in Montana and beyond.

The project also engages undergraduate students underrepresented in SBE scientific disciplines to participate in research with direct value for their communities.

The aim of this project is to advance fundamental knowledge in the SBE sciences by linking investigation of the transformative potential of social-ecological restoration in rangeland food systems with political and social challenges related to building and sustaining tolerance for wildlife. Collaborating with diverse academic and practitioner partners, this study uses in-depth interviews, field observations, and structured workshops to investigate attitudes towards free-roaming bison in Montana’s working landscapes and evaluate strategies for coexistence between people and wild bison.

This research develops an empirical window into the complex challenges of sharing working landscapes with species being restored after long absence. This work also derives methodological lessons for applying relational research methods to support participatory problem solving in politically divisive contexts. The results will 1) advance theoretical understanding of the complex political ecology of wildlife restoration in food-producing landscapes, and 2) support national commitments to rural wellbeing, Tribal sovereignty, and the restoration of grassland ecosystems.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.