As the creator of CNN, the first 24-hour news network, and other cable stations, Ted Turner forever changed the landscape of American television. Now the 64-year-old "media mogul" plans to change the landscape of the American West. He is the ringleader of a giant scientific experiment to restore damaged ecosystems--specifically, to reintroduce species and to reinvigorate Western lands in an economically sustainable way. And he may just have the means and the minds to pull it off.

Turner is the largest private landowner in the nation, controlling two million acres (an area bigger than Delaware) spread across 10 states. He is using the lands as laboratories to apply existing wildlife management techniques and to develop new ones. Since 1997 his staff of traditional ranchers, former government scientists and academic researchers has produced nearly 50 scientific publications, and their impact on the science of wildlife conservation is becoming hard to ignore.

This article was originally published with the title The Billionaire Conservationist.

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