{"id":92040,"date":"2025-08-18T14:34:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/92040\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T14:34:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:34:19","slug":"prairie-enthusiasts-hope-to-resurrect-americas-endangered-grasslands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/92040\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Prairie Enthusiasts’ hope to resurrect America’s endangered grasslands"},"content":{"rendered":"

European settlers likened the American prairie to a boundless \u201csea of grass.\u201d<\/a> If you zoom in to the perspective of the thousands of species that inhabit this under-appreciated landscape, however, it\u2019s nothing like the vast, lonely ocean \u2014 more like a raucous festival crowd, buzzing with life.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin\u2019s Schurch-Thomson Prairie<\/a> is a pointillist painting in early August, dotted with the golden coronas of black-eyed Susans, the Doctor Seussian spires of blazing star, and almost-fluorescent pops of purple coneflowers. That palette is in constant flux, as new plants bloom from April through October.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always different, it\u2019s always exciting,\u201d says Britta Petersen of the conservation group Pheasants Forever. \u201cYou don\u2019t know how diverse it is until you get in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Schurch-ThomsonSchurch-Thomson Prairie, a 193-acre farm in Wisconsin’s Military Ridge Prairie Heritage Area. (Chris Bentley\/Here & Now)<\/p>\n

Prairie ecosystems once stretched<\/a> from the Rocky Mountains to east of the Mississippi River. Today, just a tiny fraction of that remains<\/a>. This part of Wisconsin was once a great swath of prairie and oak savanna before it was transformed by farms, patchy forests and small towns.<\/p>\n

The result of that encroachment is fewer pollinating bugs, a huge loss of birds that nest in grass, and growing problems with runoff and erosion because of degraded soil.<\/p>\n

Restoration projects are resurrecting grasslands, but it will take time to roll back the environmental damage, Rich Henderson says. He is the site steward at Schurch-Thomson, which is part of the 95,000-acre Military Ridge Prairie Heritage Area<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was in crop until the mid-1980s. So you got all the soil disturbance. Then they put it into grass\u2013it wasn\u2019t native grass, but it was grass. So we had 30 years of sod redeveloping, redeveloping the soil, kind of prepping it, and now we bring in the prairie plants and they\u2019re just continuing the development,\u201d he says. \u201cIn 200 years, we might have something that\u2019s going to look like the original prairie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smell the prairie<\/p>\n

Looking is only one way to experience the prairie. This is a landscape you can inhale. Red and purple tufts of Bee Balm waft a minty scent. Purple prairie clover has a citrusy aroma. Then there\u2019s Prairie dropseed, whose odor could be called earthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo a lot of people it smells like buttered popcorn,\u201d Henderson says. \u201cAs this ripens and the seeds get hard, the smell gets a little stronger and different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt smells like dirty socks,\u201d counters The Nature Conservancy\u2019s Ann Calhoun.<\/p>\n

\"LeftLeft to right: Ann Calhoun of The Nature Conservancy; Britta Petersen of Pheasants Forever; Andy Bingle of Southern Driftless Grasslands partnership; and Rich Henderson of Prairie Enthusiasts. At Schurch-Thomson Prairie, a 193-acre farm in Wisconsin’s Military Ridge Prairie Heritage Area. (Chris Bentley\/Here & Now)<\/p>\n

Henderson is with The Prairie Enthusiasts<\/a>, part of a coalition called the Southern Driftless Grasslands partnership<\/a>. Along with The Nature Conservancy, Pheasants Forever and several government agencies, their mission is to restore grasslands across the upper Midwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrassland conservation is a team sport,\u201d says Andy Bingle, Southern Driftless Grasslands Partnership Coordinator. That\u2019s because in southwest Wisconsin, 95% of the land is privately owned, held mostly in small parcels of 20 to 200 acres.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to work with thousands of landowners,\u201d Bingle says.<\/p>\n

Once they\u2019ve identified land for conservation efforts, volunteers plant prairie seeds and pull invasive weeds so native grass can regain a foothold.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome species move easily, the wind carries them, and others don\u2019t,\u201d Henderson says. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a long time, so we\u2019re accelerating the recovery process.\u201d<\/p>\n

That recovery also helps rare grassland birds, whose populations have declined by 43% since the 1970s<\/a>, more than any other group of birds. Fortunately, most birds can thrive in grassland that isn\u2019t pristine native prairie, and many are returning.<\/p>\n

Amid the buzz of crickets and the chittering song of indigo buntings, we hear the curious portamento of a bobwhite quail. Whoever named that bird thought its call sounded like someone saying \u201cBob White?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s actually named after Bob White,\u201d says The Nature Conservancy\u2019s Ann Calhoun.<\/p>\n

\"MonarchMonarch caterpillar. (Chris Bentley\/Here & Now)<\/p>\n

We stride deeper into the tall grass, the prairie gradually swallowing us up. Dozens of species of grass scramble for light and resources. Thistles and compass plants erupt six feet into the air, while other plants creep horizontally like jungle vines, weaving themselves into miniature thickets. This is a rowdy crowd of life, a dense neighborhood for chattering insects.<\/p>\n

For all their diversity, however, many bugs eat exclusively one type of plant. That\u2019s the case with monarch butterflies, whose yellow-striped caterpillars are busy fattening up on milkweed before they metamorphose and attempt to flutter almost two thousand miles to Mexico.<\/p>\n

But beneath the riot of life above ground, the prairie conceals another world.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany prairie grasses are two to four times deeper in the soil, if you have that much soil, than what you might see growing above ground,\u201d Calhoun says. \u201cSo well-managed grasslands can be incredible reserves for carbon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fires of rebirth<\/p>\n

For thousands of years Indigenous people have known<\/a> that in the prairie, fire is an agent of rebirth. Some grasses produce more seeds after they\u2019re burned. Fire stimulates many plants to put down deeper roots. Blazes also prevent the creep of brush and trees, a process known as woody encroachment that is a serious threat to grasslands<\/a> around the world.<\/p>\n

But fire was suppressed for much of the 20th century, hastening the loss of grasslands. Conservationists including The Prairie Enthusiasts have resumed prescribed burns to encourage the natural cycle of regeneration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt stimulates the native plants that are used to the fire and gives them a competitive edge,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

\"BlazingBlazing star (Liatris) at Schurch-Thomson Prairie, a 193-acre farm in Wisconsin’s Military Ridge Prairie Heritage Area. (Chris Bentley\/Here & Now)<\/p>\n

They\u2019re giving the land a hand in other ways, too. In the basement of a big red barn beside Schurch-Thomson prairie, volunteers sift through piles of seedpods gathered from the field.<\/p>\n

Jan Ketelle shakes a handful of seeds through a series of sieves, including a kitchen colander.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe use whatever we can find,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m a specialist in handwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

A colander won\u2019t suffice for a plant called New Jersey tea\u2013its clusters of tiny seeds are encased in hard, black pods, so volunteer Eric Preston feeds a bucketful into a machine called a hammer mill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t designed for prairie plants, but it\u2019s designed for agriculture. We\u2019re basically doing agriculture, we\u2019re just not eating the proceeds,\u201d Preston says. \u201cWe let the birds eat the proceeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston says he\u2019s been \u201ckillin\u2019 weeds and collectin\u2019 seeds\u201d with The Prairie Enthusiasts for 16 years, and his work is starting to pay off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do a lot of brush and tree control as well,\u201d he says, \u201cand you can just see the prairie opening up and rebuilding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sun\u2019s getting low, and it\u2019s time to leave the prairie. Soon it\u2019ll be a different landscape: fall flowers blooming and summer plants fading, the colorful waves on that sea of grass changing hue, the chorus of birds and bugs singing a different tune, and grasses growing back from dormant seeds into something new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European settlers likened the American prairie to a boundless \u201csea of grass.\u201d If you zoom in to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-92040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}