It Doesn’t Take Much

In my nearly thirty years of habitat restoration efforts, one thing I’ve learned is that nature will respond to even the most miniscule of efforts to restore habitat.

My family’s 2.5 acre prairie restoration and small adjoining windbreak in North Central Iowa which started as a field of corn stubble in1988, has yielded results far exceeding what we expected. The habitat we’ve nurtured has attracted prairie birds like meadowlarks and dickcissels. Migrant prairie birds like American Golden plovers and upland sandpipers. A multitude of butterlies and dragonflies that I need to learn to identify. Early in our efforts, there was the signs of a badger. The Summer prairie teems with life.

In the windbreak we planted, the common yellowthroat sings from the honeysuckle bushes at the edge of the prairie. Brown thrashers lurk in the denser parts of the windbreak, and a male song sparrow bursts with song from gray dogwood.

Not bad for a former field of corn stubble. It doesn’t take much effort to bring nature back, the will to do so is the first step.

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The End of the Monarch Butterfly

What was once common is no longer common. The monarch butterfly, arguably the most recognizable butterfly in North America is apparently headed towards extinction. The causes of its demise are twofold: Destruction of the forests in Mexico where it spends the winter and the destruction of milkweed plants on which its larvae feed. I remember this butterfly being the first butterfly I recall as child growing up in Iowa. Last year I saw none. Scientists say the population began crashing around 2010.

The monarch lays its eggs on milkweed plants in the United States, however these milkweed plants are being lost to powerful new herbicides wiping the plant out of the ditches, end rows, and fencelines of the American Midwest. Without the milkweed, there is no monarch butterfly.

But there is something anyone can do to help the monarch butterfly. PLANT MILKWEED species in your yard along with other nectar producing flowers. Monarch butterflies will readily lay eggs in milkweed plants planted in a suburban setting. SO THIS IS ONE SPECIES THE AVERAGE PERSON CAN HELP BY PLANTING MILKWEED IN THEIR YARD.

As for sources of milkweed, seek out seed from milkweed plants in your area. Common milkweed (Asclepias Syriaca) is probably the most common milkweed and can still be found in many areas like ditches and prairie remnants. But there are other milkweed species out there like swamp milkweed and butterflyweed to name a few. Seek out milkweed seed for free in ditches and prairie remnants where possible. Otherwise, milkweed seed can be purchased from many nurseries that specialize in native prairie species.

Here is one source:

http://www.prairiemoon.com/

And check out this organization who’s mission is to save the monarch butterfly:

http://www.monarchwatch.org/

The bottom line is that we can save the monarch butterfly from extinction if we act now!

MORE INFORMATION on the monarch’s demise:

New York Times Article on Monarchs

The Monarch Butterfly

Common Milkweed (Asclepias Syriaca) in bloom

Common Milkweed seed pod

Butterflyweed (Asclepias Tuberosa)

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias Incarnata)

Myriad of Threats Towards Nature

If you care about nature, there is no time like the present to do something to try to stem the tide of destruction and take up restoration of even the tiniest area of habitat. There’s a myriad of environmental causes to choose from. I will focus on two such issues facing wildlife and ecosystems in Iowa and the Midwest.

1. Loss of CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) acres: For the past two decades, millions of acres have been planted with prairie grasses and wildflowers to put farmland out of production temporarily for periods ranging from 5 – 10 years. This program has been a boon to prairie bird species for obvious reasons. Recently, due to record commodity prices, a reverse trend of putting CRP land back into production has escalated. Drastic declines are predicted for prairie bird species as a result. This highlights the need for permanent and large acreage prairie restorations.

2. Endangered Species: Bit by bit we are losing multiple endangered species every day to extinction. There is still animosity among many towards the Endangered Species Act in general. Case in point is the fate of the Lesser Prairie Chicken. Numbers of the bird have plummeted in recent years, approaching a 95 % decline in the last decade. The bird’s fate makes it more than worthy of protection under the Endangered Species Act. Yet powerful oil and gas interests are fighting hard to stop the bird’s listing under the Act because of the federal regulations that would come into play. Some of these interests have formed “dummy” non-profits to “help” the Lesser Prairie Chicken. The species is doomed if oil and gas interests are its only champion. Emails and letters to the FWS and legislators are needed to speak for the Lesser Prairie Chicken.

“If you build it, they will come.”

Life quickly returns to restored tallgrass prairie. Like the adage from the movie “Field of Dreams”- “If you build it, they will come.”

Case in point, the relatively miniscule four acre prairie my family and I restored in rural North Central Iowa starting in 1988. In 1988, this same plot consisted of a barren field of corn stubble. Historic records indicate that the land was tallgrass prairie; first broken around 1870. After a 118 year absence, the prairie “sons” returned home. Compass plant, pale purple coneflower, rattlesnake master, prairie blazing star, big bluestem and other prairie seed was sown. Plants unfamiliar to the 1980’s farmer. As foreign to him as surely the modern day multi-generational high yielding corn hybrids would have been to the Civil War veteran who first broke the prairie sod here so long ago.

Within two years, the first true prairie natives flowered after a centuries absence. Over twenty years later and with the help of the prairie’s fire ally, the restored prairie thrives. The prairie holds no grudges against man.

Compass plants tower over me at 8 feet. A rich tapestry of colorful flowers at every turn. Dickcissels, Western Meadowlarks, yellowthroat warblers, and song sparrows fill the restored prairie with their songs. Spring and Fall migrations have brought golden plovers and upland sandpipers. The summer prairie teems with insects and butterflies. The drone of bees fills the air. Cottontail rabbits and leopard frogs duck in the prairie grass for cover as I approach. Not bad for a former dismal, lifeless field of corn stubble.

“If you build it, they will come.”

The Great American Monoculture

The American suburban landscape is a sterile one, consisting of introduced bluegrass lawns with foundation plantings of showy European and Asiatic species. Without irrigation and constant applications of herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizer, the non-natives quickly wither. Why? Because they are not native here.

A doctoral thesis in psychology could be written to answer the question on WHY Americans see a sterile monoculture as attractive or interesting and why the American public as a whole fails to see the beauty of native prairie species. My theory is this: Neat tidy lawns are a status symbol of American “success” and a way we can symbolize our desire to “fit in” with our neighbors and their sterile monoculture lawns. Shaggy old prairie “weeds” don’t fit the bill.

I also believe the saturation in the American suburban landscape of sterile monoculture bluegrass lawns demonstrates a DISCONNECT between the American public and nature. People don’t want prairie in their yards because they don’t “connect” with it and other native landscapes. The hybrid, Asiatic day lily is an attractive substitute for them.

I argue opposite. The native patch of prairie restoration or plantings of native trees and shrubs in one’s yard forms a connection with the natural, native world we’ve lost. The beauty of the native prairie species outshines the non-native hybrid junk every time and evolved to survive the brutal weather of the American Midwest.

My Prairie Story

My interest in the prairie started early. Born in 1967, I developed an interest in nature early. Later this evolved into an interest in prairie and prairie restoration when my family bought 80 acres of farmland in Hardin County, Iowa in 1987. That Fall, we staked off two acres of the land with the intention of restoring it to tallgrass prairie. Soon we were scouring the local ditches and railroad right of ways collecting all of the prairie seed we could lay our hands on. Surprisingly, we found quite a few tiny pockets of surviving prairie. Educating ourselves as we went along, we learned to identify the common prairie species by sight both from what they looked like in flower and after they went to seed. Winter soon came and we put our prairie restoration on hold till Spring.

In the Spring, we tilled the plot we chose to restore with a garden sized Sears garden tiller. We recognized the uniqueness of what we were doing as we tilled through heavy corn stubble residue from the previous year and attracted long glances from passing pickup trucks from the road nearby.

Scattering our collected seed to the wind, we were able to cover nearly half an acre that first year. Based on what we had read on prairie restoration, we knew we’d need to be patient as the prairie plants spent their first years developing deep roots with little to show above ground.

Later that Summer, we transplanted rattlesnake master, hoary puccoon, prairie phlox, and others from an area of railroad right of way we had learned was slated for bulldozing. We were happy to augment our restoration with transplanted sods of virgin prairie. More important, we were happy to save the virgin transplants from certain destruction. We learned through our restoration efforts that the last bits of virgin Iowa prairie were still being chiseled away into oblivion. Would there be a day when even these tiny bits would be gone?

By the second Spring, we observed tiny compass plant seedlings and the emergence of small clumps of big bluestem and Indian grass. Slowly the prairie was returning to where it had been absent for 115 years.

By the third year, the prairie took off. By the fourth year, we burned the first half acre and through more local seed collecting had reseeded the remaining acre and a half.

Twenty something years later, this two acre restoration exceeded our expectations. The transplanted species have prospered and spread. Our success was highlighted a decade ago when the Hardin County Roadside Management director contacted us about the prairie he discovered one Summer day as he and his crew spot sprayed thistle patches in county ditches. “Was it virgin prairie?” he asked. He could not tell the difference.

Our restoration is a sense of pride. Not pride in ourselves, but we were proud that at least on this tiny speck of land in a sea of corn and soybeans, the prairie, not the bulldozer, won.

The Love of Tallgrass Prairie

What is so special about tallgrass prairie? I’ve noticed that most people who are prairie enthusiasts are usually extremely passionate about their love of prairies. I consider myself in this lot.

So let me try to articulate my love of tallgrass prairies. Another naturalist once said that to experience a tallgrass prairie, you need to walk out in it. Wade through the tallgrass and wild flowers. Simply driving past a prairie will not do.

As I walk into a prairie I am drawn into a complex world. A virgin prairie is a primeval place which takes no direction from the world of man. Every square inch of prairie is different from every other square inch. Grasses like Big Bluestem compete with prairie wildflowers for sunlight. Butterflies and dragonflies flitter around me. A clump of brilliant orange Butterfly weed catches my eye. Then I see flashy pink prairie phlox. I wonder why I didn’t see either just a moment before as I exited my car. By now I’ve forgotten man’s world of mono cultures and artificial order.

Persons wanting to experience biodiversity need not leave the American Midwest. One acre of high quality virgin tallgrass prairie can easily contain 200+ plant species with an equal variety of insects, birds, and reptiles. The diversity of the prairie makes every visit one of exploration and surprises.

The rarity of tallgrass prairie also attracts me. While the Amazon rain forest continues to be leveled in the present, the tallgrass prairie was relegated to minuscule scraps and is now 99.9% gone in Iowa. This has been the case since the mid 20th century. Take a walk in a tallgrass prairie and you are time traveling to an Iowa landscape that doesn’t exist.

It’s time for me to leave the prairie now. I exit as I step foot on the non-native bluegrass that covers the parking area.

Simplification

I stumbled across the “Iowa Geographic Map Server” website tonight.

It is here: Iowa Geographic Map Server

On this site, you can access aerial photographic maps of Iowa dating from the 1930’s till the present. Pick a random area. Trace the vegetative cover and land use through the decades. From this exercise, I’ve come to several conclusions.

1. The concept of a “family farm” is largely long gone. The disappearance of individual family farms is evident as farming has taken on a strong corporate character hellbent on making a profit at any cost.

2. Because of the growth of corporate farms and disappearance of family farms, the nature of the land has changed. The aerial maps from the 1930’s show farmsteads with substantial windbreaks, pastures, crooked streams, and idle areas. If the resolution was better, I suspect we’d see hard working families with a strong connection to the land, conscious of the connection between their prosperity and the health of the land they worked.

3. The aerial maps of the present show a loss of most of the windbreak bounded family farms. The more “willy nilly” nature of the land has been replaced by featureless corporate owned “fence row to fence row” monoculture tracts distinguished only by the roads that give access, hog confinements, and rows of wind turbines. My present day travels tell me that my observation here is spot on.

We’ve lost a lot of the natural world in Iowa in the last 80-some years. Evident even on high altitude aerial photographs.

Lost Connection

The biggest factor affecting the continued demise of the natural world is mankind’s growing disconnect with the natural world. It’s human nature to care about things in the realm of their daily life. For example, 99.9% of Americans are not regretful about the loss of the tall grass prairie because they do not even know it exists, let alone notice it’s passing. The American public by and large won’t shed a tear when the last Attwater’s prairie chicken breathes its last breath or when the last small white Lady slipper shrivels to death from herbicide drift. Can we blame them?

A New Beginning

The vast unbroken tall grass prairie that blanketed Iowa is gone. Hopelessly lost forever to the plow and the herbicides that followed. What little is left exists in fragments, like tiny specks in a sea of corn, soybeans, and ditches of smooth brome grass and other non-native species that man introduced to replace the prairie.

The fragments and preserves of tall grass prairie continue to be chipped away year by year by more plowing, herbicides, and neglect. Fragments of true prairie that Ada Hayden measured in acres can now be measured in square feet. Mankind has still not widely recognized the value of tall grass prairie, and so it continues to evaporate from the face of the Earth.

The ONLY hope for the tall grass prairie and its plant and animal species is to RESTORE the tall grass prairie. There are no other viable option because virgin aces of tall grass prairie no longer exist to be preserved. This is a new beginning in terms of prairie preservation.