Baby bison, restored habitats, and the incredible biodiversity at Fermilab

For the past 55 years at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the arrival of spring has also meant the arrival of some familiar, furry faces to the site located in Batavia, Ill.: the lab’s newborn baby bison.

The first two bison calves of the season made their way into the world on April 26, with the around 20 total calves expected for the herd of 24 cows and two bulls. Wait, bison at Fermilab?

The American plains bison (Bison bison) have been a tradition at the University of Chicago-affiliated lab dedicated to particle physics research since 1969. Founding director Robert Wilson established the herd as a symbol of history of the Midwestern prairie and the laboratory’s pioneering research at the frontiers of particle physics. The herd—which has been genetically tested to ensure they are pure-bred—is a huge draw for visitors, who can visit seven days a week, and can be viewed anytime from Fermilab’s bison camera.

While the bison tend to get the headlines, they represent just a tiny fraction of the thousands of animal, plant, and fungi species that call the 6,800-acre site home, aided by the experts and volunteers who work to conserve them and their habitats. Natural resource management on federal land is mandated by an array of statues, Executive Orders, and the US Department of Energy, and Fermilab takes that charge of land management based on ecological science and stewardship values very seriously.

“Doing anything we can do to preserve biodiversity is very critical—we want to preserve as many different species as possible,” said Walter Levernier, Fermilab’s lead ecologist who has helped manage the site’s natural areas since 2018.

Of the 6,800 acres, Levernier and his team manage 2,600 acres encompassing nine diverse natural habitats: tallgrass prairie, forest, woodland, oak savanna, shrubland, basin marsh, sedge meadow, old-field grassland, and open and moving water. Day-to-day tasks include native seed collection, prescribed burns, invasive species control, vegetation and animal surveying, coordinating with new construction to reduce potential ecological impacts, and assisting with education and serving as a liaison for the volunteer group Fermilab Natural Areas.

Along with the diversity of the work, Levernier enjoys the chance to see positive results of long-term ecological planning in a controlled environment that exists at Fermilab.

One of Fermilab’s biggest success stories has been the restoration of the Midwest’s original tallgrass prairie ecosystem, long since lost after European settlement of the Americas. In Illinois—nicknamed the “prairie state”—less than 0.01% of the 22 million acres of tallgrass prairie remains. In the 1970s, a unique partnership between a biologist from Northwestern Illinois University, Dr. Robert F. Betz, and Wilson, who was looking for assistance in developing unused land on the new Fermilab, was born to help restore the prairie.

In 1975, The Fermilab Prairie Committee was formed and with it the first 9-acre prairie was planted on land within the main accelerator ring. The conversion of fallow fields and agricultural lands to tallgrass prairie continued until 2000, ending with 25 plantings totaling nearly 1,000 acres.

“For them to be able to do that before most people were restoring prairie—it’s an amazing legacy to be a part of,” Levernier said.

Two current projects Levernier and the Roads and Grounds team with Fermilab Natural Areas are working on are heavily related to the conservation of birds. The first includes the grassland preservation to promote the habitat for grassland nesting birds like the grasshopper sparrow and bobolink. These types of ground nesting birds that are declining in Chicago and all over the country due to the disappearance of their habitat. The other has to do with the preservation of shrublands to combat the loss of its birds, such as the Bell’s vireo and yellow-breasted chat.

“You want to preserve species to preserve species, and it’s the right thing to do—that’s why I do it,” Levernier said. “But there’s also potential benefits for us: healthy natural areas provide flood storage, and they filter contaminants out of water, and they do all sorts of services for us.“So, healthy ecosystems are really important for our health, for biodiversity.”

Learn more about Fermilab’s commitment to nature and ecology on its website. Interested in volunteering? Visit Fermilab Natural Areas, an independent non-profit organization that dedicates more than 4,000 volunteer hours to support the habitats per year.