2005
15 December 2005. Prairie:
Long-Range Forecast. By Candace
Savage, Forest Magazine, Winter 2006. Excerpt:
In 1960, 3 million acres of land were
designated national grasslands, and
put under U.S. Forest Service purview.
There are twenty national grasslands,
all managed by the Forest Service. ...
the Loess Hills in Iowa, the Mescalero
Dunes in New Mexico, the Black Hills
Coniferous Forest in South Dakota, the
Little Missouri Mountains in Montana-and
others in almost every region. Candace
Savage's book Prairie: A Natural History
explores these remarkable ecosystems,
celebrating this oft-unsung landscape
with perspective and affection. ...when
the Earth is losing species at an average
rate of one every twenty minutes-the
wide-open spaces of the Great Plains
are a landscape of hope. ...According
to a recent "biological-trends
assessment"
conducted by a team of researchers from
several western universities, a total
of about 1.2 million square kilometers
(465,000 square miles) of natural grassland
has been destroyed in the western United
States since the onset of intensive
settlement. Of these losses, almost
10 percent-110,000 square kilometers
(43,000 square miles), an area half
the size of Kansas-were incurred between
1950 and 1990. ... the destruction is
relentless. In Colorado alone, more
than 1,100 square kilometers (420 square
miles) of farm and ranch land are lost
every year, and the rate is accelerating.
... this continuing assault on the prairie
ecosystem imposes an escalating stress
on species that rely on wild grasslands
for their survival. ...The cause of
prairie restoration has found some unexpected
advocates, among them the Iowa Department
of Transportation. ...What the state
does have...is a go-anywhere grid of
roads, all of which have vegetated margins.
Taken together, these strips add up
to about 2,000 square kilometers (roughly
half a million acres) of unproductive
land that requires mowing, spraying
and other regular maintenance. In an
attempt to reduce costs in the late
1980s, the transportation authorities
began to experiment with the use of
native plants, on the assumption that
they were adapted to local conditions
and could look after themselves. Since
then, more than 20,000 hectares (about
50,000 acres) of roadside have been
seeded, a little more every year, to
either a four-grass mixture-typically
big and little bluestem, side- oats
grama and Indian grass-or to a colorful
assortment of native grasses and wildflowers.
The results have exceeded all expectations.
In addition to controlling expenses,
the flower-rich plantings in particular
have become slender oases of life, blooming
not only with flowers but also with
butterflies. In 2001, for example, researchers
found five times as many butterflies
and twice as many species in the high-quality
restorations as in comparable grassy
or weedy ditches...
Fall 2005. Prairie:
Home on the Range. By Candace Savage.
Forest Magazine. Excerpt:
In 1960, 3 million acres of land were
designated national grasslands, and
put under U.S. Forest Service purview.
There are twenty national grasslands,
all managed by the Forest Service. ...Rangelands-expanses
of native grassland that are grazed
by livestock-exist only where the prairie
has somehow managed to escape the plow,
usually because the soil is too dry,
too thin, too rocky, or too steep to
be suitable for crops. ...In some ways,
the introduction of domesticated livestock
onto the Great Plains was not much of
a shock to the ecosystem. Bison and
cattle belong to the family Bovidae,
and trace their ancestry back to India
and China some 2 million years ago.
...This is not to say that the introduction
of cattle to the Great Plains has been
completely benign-it has not. ... bison
like to throw themselves on the ground
and flail around in the dirt, a self-care
routine that is thought to coat the
skin with dust and offer protection
from biting insects. In the process,
they wear away shallow bowls, or "wallows"
in the earth. By rubbing out the grasses
from these hollows, bison create openings
for other kinds of plants. The increased
diversity of plants available for shelter
and food also augments the diversity
of insects, birds, and mammals. If the
depressions fill with water, they provide
seasonal habitat for aquatic insects
and water-loving shorebirds. Or at least
they used to. Because cattle do not
wallow, this dynamic has been lost.... |
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