Sunday, May 27, 2012

Native Prairie and Prairie Bones



8 comments:

  1. Nary a tree nor rock in sight. The vastness overwhelms me. It's a different type of beauty than what one sees out east. Nice job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Native prairie use to cover all the land from Texas to Canada, 250 million acres, but it is disappearing rapidly due to government ag policy. Between 2002-2006 SD and NE alone lost over 300,000 acres of prairie. Only 1,400 acres remain in small patches in Iowa with the largest only 90 acres. Plowing privately owned prairie is where it is going. Native prairie looks like monoculture, just grass, but can contains over 200-300 plant species which then supports a wide variety of insects and wildlife. These photos were taken 3 weeks after a controlled burn.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you so much for the info on the Cadillac cars ... I thought they were American by the sheer size of them!!
    Your Prairie is very different from our vast inland spaces which are predominately red.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting info - since there are bones, what about prairie wildlife? Rabbits?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For countless centuries the prairie had a special relationship with American bison. The herds numbered in the millions. They ate the grass, but did not damage the plant. The also provided fertilizer. There are only a few places where there are bison still living on native prairie.

      Yes, there are rabbits, two species, cotton tails and jackrabbits. There are also coyotes, wolves, deer, and a large variety of birds. The prairie pot hole region of the Dakotas and Canada is where most geese and ducks propagate.

      Delete
    2. The German word for cotton tail is "Baumwollschwanzkaninchen" - imagine these many syllables. Since they are exclusive to the Americas I had to look it up. Therefore the trivia.
      I think jackrabbit is the same as hare.

      Yes, of course, bison!

      Delete
  5. Great photo of both the Vast prairie and jack rabbit bones.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, Jack rabbit bones. Not sure what kind of critter it was from, just know that one of the prairie residents didn't make it through last year.

      Delete