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2008/01/11

Prairie Quotes #2

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 5:48 pm

From Explorers’ Texas: The Lands and Waters by Del Weniger:

"The most variegated carpet of flowers I ever beheld lay unrolled before me – red, yellow, violet, blue, every color, every tint was there… The finest artificial garden in the world would sink into insignificance when compared with this parterre of nature’s own planting."

“My horse could scarcely make his way through the wilderness of flowers, and I for a time remained lost in admiration of this scene of extraordinary beauty. The prairie in the distance looked as if clothed with rainbows that waved to and fro over its surface.” – Charles Sealsfield in the tallgrass prairies of Texas, 1843

2008/01/10

Tallgrass Prairie Center to Study Prairie Hay for Bio-electricity

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 7:38 am

From BioPact"Tallgrass Prairie Center to study polyculture prairie hay for bio-electricity: combining conservation and restoration with bioenergy":

"The University of Northern Iowa’s Tallgrass Prairie Center is conducting a five-year project to research how prairie hay can be used to generate electricity, partnering with Cedar Falls Utilities, Soil Tilth Lab at Iowa State University and the Black Hawk County Conservation Board."

"The Tallgrass Prairie Center is a strong advocate of progressive, ecological approaches utilizing native vegetation to provide environmental, economic and aesthetic benefits for the public good. The center is in the vanguard of roadside vegetation management, native Source Identified seed development, and prairie advocacy."

There is another good article on BioPact, "Bioenergy, conservation and wildlife protection can boost each other" that discusses biofuel from native prairie plantings.  The article described how native prairie plantings can provide cellulosic biomass for ethanol and other bioenergy methods while simultaneously sequestering carbon in the soil, improving water quality, and providing habitat for grassland birds, other prairie wildlife, and native prairie plant communities.

2008/01/09

Prairie Quotes, First Installment

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 7:43 am

Prairie Foxglove at Simpson Prairie by Lisa SpanglerHere is the first installment of what I plan to be a regular feature: great quotes, poems, and songs about the prairie.

Quotes, poems, and songs can evoke the emotional side of prairies, which I hope will help get more people interested in learning about prairie and prairie conservation.

Today’s quotes were spotted on Sioux City Art Center’s web page in a description of an exhibit by Jin Lee called Wind and Prairie:

On the prairie there is sometimes a quiet so absolute that it allows one to begin again, to love the future.

— Robert Adams, To Make It Home: Photographs of the American West, 1989


The prairie path leads to the sky path; the paths are one: the continents are two; and you must make your journey from the prairies to the sky.

— William A. Quayle, The Prairie and the Sea, 1905

Coal Plant’s Impact to Prairie was Feared

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 7:01 am

Big Bluestem by Bill Glass, Illinois Department of Natural ResourcesThis is the first time I’ve ever heard of something like this:

(via the Joliet Herald News online story "Coal-burning power plant extinguished: Elwood Plan Flops")

"ELWOOD — Plans for a controversial coal-fired power plant have fizzled out.

Others were concerned over the impact the plant would have on the neighboring Midewin National Tall Grass Prairie."

2008/01/08

Blooming Prairies: Biomass for Biofuel

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 10:33 am

From the MIT Technology Review article "The Price of Biofuel":

"Blooming Prairies: Whether ethanol made from cellulosic biomass is good or bad for the environment, however, depends on what kind of biomass it is and how it is grown.

In a series of tests, Tilman grew a mixture of native prairie grasses (including switchgrass) in some of the field’s plots and single species in others. The results show that a diverse mix of grasses, even grown in extremely infertile soil, "could be a valuable source of biofuels," he says. "You could make more ethanol from an acre [of the mixed grasses] than you could from an acre of corn." Better yet, in a paper published in Science, Tilman showed that the prairie grasses could be used to make ethanol that is "carbon negative": the grasses might consume and store more carbon dioxide than is released by producing and burning the fuel made from them." "

UTA Students Win Award for Prairie Park Planning

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 8:18 am

Great Plains Restoration Council photo of From the Dallas Morning News:

"UTA students win for park project: University of Texas at Arlington students won the Student Project Award from the Midwest Section of the Texas chapter of the American Planning Association. The project focuses on a proposed Fort Worth Prairie Park, a 1,983-acre section of prairie in southwest Tarrant County, some of the last remaining original Fort Worth prairie ecosystem."

Read the full article at the Dallas Morning News.  Also read more about efforts to create a Fort Worth Prairie Park to protect a ~2000 acre tallgrass prairie remnant in Tarrant County.

2008/01/07

Prairie Photography of Jim Brandenburg

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 11:07 am

Photo by Jim BrandenburgFrom the Hidden Trails blog:

"Renowned National Geographic photographer is considered one of the premier wildlife photographers in the world. However, this Minnesota-based artist doesn’t measure his success by the numerous national and international awards and honors he has received. Rather, he gleans a well-earned sense of satisfaction from a steadfast and long-term commitment to his almost mystical quest to explore and understand the wilderness. As he says, "Ever since I was a boy, I have had a passion for telling stories about the forest and the prairies." …

An abbreviated list of Brandenburg’s project for National Geographic include: "The Tallgrass Prairie," "The Canadian Rockies," "South Dakota Badlands," "At Home with the Arctic Wolf," and "Ellesmere Island Life in the High Arctic.""

See Jim Brandenburg’s prairie photos by going to his web page, clicking on "Gallery", then clicking on "Prairie".

Jim Brandenburg also helped found the Brandenburg Prairie Foundation which helped protect 800 acres of tallgrass prairie in Minnesota.

2008/01/06

Endangered Black-footed Ferrets Released In Kansas

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 7:49 am

Defenders of Wildlife photoThe Defenders of Wildlife and Audubon of Kansas announced that the US Fish and Wildlife Service released twenty-four captive-bred endangered black-footed ferrets into the wild onto 10,000 acres of private ranch land in the short grass prairies of western Kansas containing over 6,000 acres of prairie dog towns.

Prairie dogs are the ferret’s only food, so they depend on prairie dog towns for their survival.

From the release: Because of the prairie dog colonies, these wildlife-friendly landowners have been at the forefront of an ongoing conservation battle. They have resisted the efforts of the Logan County Commissioners and the Kansas Farm Bureau, each determined to force these and other landowners to poison their lands to exterminate prairie dogs.

Read the full story, "Holiday Gift in Kansas: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Releases Native Black-footed Ferrets", on Defenders of Wildlife’s web site.

Monarchs on the Prairie

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 7:46 am

MonachWatch logoButterflies like the Monarch have always been one of my favorite parts of the prairie.

MonarchWatch has some interesting prairie-as-habitat information on their web site and have even started a blog.  For example, in "Status Report on the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in Canada" by Crolla and Lafontaine they state:

In the last 150 years there has been a major shift in the North American distribution of the eastern population of the Monarch (see Brower 1995). Until the 1880’s, the prairie region of central North America appears to have been the main breeding area of the eastern Monarch population. The native prairie flora includes about 22 species of habitat-specific milkweeds (Asclepias), many of which can serve as larval hostplants, and an abundance of flowering plants that provide a diverse array of nectar resources for adult Monarchs.

(more…)

2008/01/05

Wisconsin Announces $1 Million La Crosse Grasslands Stewardship Purchase

Filed under: — Stormwind @ 7:40 am

Image from WKBT La Crosse, WIFrom a December release from the Wisconsin Governor’s office: Governor Doyle Announces $1 Million La Crosse Grasslands Stewardship Purchase

Governor Jim Doyle today announced a nearly $1 million Stewardship grant to the Mississippi Valley Conservancy (MVC) for the purchase of the 318-acre parcel inside La Crosse Terrace Grasslands Priority Area in La Crosse County. The $2 million project is being funding by the $962,500 Stewardship grant and the remainder is made possible through a private donation by Northern Engraving and fundraising efforts by the MVC.

The 318-acre parcel contains the last open grasslands of significant size remaining on the La Crosse terrace, an area that used to contain thousands of acres of prairie. The project will protect a large and rare parcel of prime grassland bird habitat containing two threatened species and more than 90 species of native birds that have been deemed “Species of Greatest Conservation Need” by the Wisconsin’s Wildlife Action Plan. The Grasslands sit atop the expansive Mississippi River Terrace, created over 20,000 years ago during the last ice-age and containing native landforms, such as wind-formed dunes, that remain similar to how they were first formed prior to European settlement.

Read the full release, "Governor Doyle Announces $1 Million La Crosse Grasslands Stewardship Purchase", for more information.

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