Imagine a future in which your grandkids have never seen an acorn...
This was part two of The Ozark Podcast's conversation with AJ Hendershott from the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation. Think they're doing really cool work to bring back this tree species.
https://www.ozarkweekly.com/p/ozark-chinquapin-2
The whole "functionally extinct" vs truly extinct distinction was interesting--the tree is stuck in a type of "death loop" since it stump sprouts, but can never grow big enough to reproduce before the blight kills it again.
>Imagine a future in which your grandkids have never seen an acorn...
That sounds ridiculous, but it’s close to the experience our grandparents have with the Ozark Chinquapin. In one lifetime, this tree went from being so abundant people used shovels to gather chinquapin nuts off the ground to being so rare they’re nearly unheard of.
Ozarkers have helped pull other species back from the edge of extinction—like the black bear and turkey. So saving the Chinquapin could be the great conservation story of our generation.
