American chestnut returns to Bronx Zoo 120 years after blight devastated species

More than 120 years after the American chestnut blight was first documented at the Bronx Zoo, the iconic tree is making a historic return to the same grounds where its devastating decline was first recorded.On Monday, October 5, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo and the New York Restoration Project planted the first of 25 hybrid American chestnut saplings at the zoo. According to a release issued by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the trees were donated by NYRP in partnership with The American Chestnut Foundation and will be planted across three locations on the 265-acre zoo grounds.The return marks a significant moment in efforts to restore a species that was once a defining feature of forests across the eastern United States but is now considered functionally extinct in the wild.The blight that changed America's forestsThe American chestnut was once one of the largest and most abundant trees in the forests…