More recently, an entity called the American Prairie Reserve (APR) has materialized, to piece together several million acres of public and private land into an unfenced grassland on which tens of thousands of pure buffalo will be able to thrive in their full natural habitat, side by side with all the other animals that will return once we sapiens withdraw. It’s a glorious, world-class idea, and I support it heartily.   And yet, I feel sympathy with ranchers of east central Montana who see the APR as a threat to their pastoral heritage. What the Poppers would say, of course, is that the threat to heritage ranching is not from the prairie reserve, but from much larger economic and social forces that humans cannot control.I’ve talked with some of these ranchers and I have deep respect for their work and their character. They and their families have toughed it out in one of the most unforgiving landscapes of North America for several difficult generations — the fires, the grasshoppers, the dust bowls, the killing blizzards, drought, low commodity prices, corrupt or inefficient railroads. And now suddenly along come extremely rich outsiders with their notions about “conservation,” outbidding longtime residents for ranches that should be raising cattle, not buffalo, and then flying away in their private jets without having the slightest idea of what it takes to live here!