DNR Prairie reclamation project picks up steam
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By Jeff Snyder
MOUNT AYR, Iowa — The latest efforts to create and execute a plan of prairie reclamation throughout Iowa’s rural ecosystems by the Department of Natural Resources continue throughout Ringgold County. Currently, there is work being performed on the Walnut Creek Marsh Wildlife Preserve, located south of State Highway 2, approximately four miles west of Mount Ayr.
DNR has ramped up clearing efforts on this 60-acre nature preserve accelerating the needed excavation in an effort to take advantage of this coming growing season.
The stated goal by DNR is to recover and convert as many natural open spaces across Iowa as possible. The ultimate goal is to transform the land back to its original open prairie grasslands the way Iowa’s landscape used to appear before westerners began to settle the land.
Before settlements, farms and civilization began to encroach on the land it is now known that Iowa was a sea of grassland and natural rolling hills. The ecosystem was self sustaining and resilient. Through the years mankind slowly began to settle these fertile lands and take advantage of the rich farming bounty the landscape promised. Unfortunately, the trade off of this settlement was the forfeiture of the originality of the land.
As time and settlements grew, more and more invasive plant species were allowed to take root in the landscape slowly eroding the prairie land and re-imagining it as modeled patchy plots of land that drifted away from the original open plain environment that once dominated the state. Along with these changing landscapes came the inevitable disruption to the indigenous wildlife that wandered the grassy fields slowly displacing natural species such as the Prairie Chicken, Ringed-Neck Pheasants and song birds such as the Dickcissel and Vesper. Waterfowl and normal migratory routes were also disrupted by converting the land to agriculture by way of marshland and waterway eradication.
The balance of natural resources and human needs is a complicated process. Farming is definitely here to stay and is not expected to give back the gains that have been made over the decades. DNR is simply attempting to take advantage of the lands that are not privately owned and revert them back to their original form where possible.
In speaking with a representative of DNR they were universally appreciative of any efforts that could be made to help educate the public on these important projects.
“This project will drastically change the look of the Walnut Creek Marsh Wildlife area,” Iowa DNR representative Josh Rusk said.
According to Rusk, when the state obtained these lands in the 1940s these portions were virtually treeless. But as the decades wore on in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s trees gradually increased in the drainage areas. These are the areas DNR intends to concentrate on as the reclamation project proceeds.
Rusk went on to explain the expansion of the clearing to the south of the marsh whereby they intend to leave a large portion of the felled trees and invasive shrubs to provide short term brushy cover for species like cotton tail rabbits, bobwhite quail, loggerhead shrike and indigo bunting.
Eventually, the land will heal and revert back to its original form. This is a massive project and DNR wants to keep the public appraised of their progress.
