Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge: Prairie Restored

It is hard to imagine what the Midwest looked like before colonization. The arrival of the plow completely transformed the landscape. The descriptions of unbroken miles of grass defy understanding. As prairie restoration at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge continues, hopefully imaging the prairie will be less difficult.

Iowa’s Tallgrass Prairie

Prairie once covered over 80% of Iowa’s countryside. The prairie ecosystem, with its grasses and wildflowers, extends far beneath the surface of the soil. Some prairie grass root systems extend over twenty feet into the ground. As the plants lived and died (or burned), the soil built up into the black, rich topsoil that early settlers couldn’t wait to exploit.

The ecosystem

As the prairie ecosystem evolved over thousands of years, it developed in one of the diverse ecosystems on Earth. Only the Brazilian rainforest surpasses the biodiversity of the prairie. Looking at the prairie, the most dominant plants are grasses. Grasses aren’t always dramatically different from one species to another, but the could be over 40 species of grass in a prairie. Adding to the diversity are over 300 species of prairie flowers and other plants, and the grassland animals that thrive in the grassland.

What grows above the surface only accounts for a small part of the ecosystem. Roots of many prairie plants grow over 10 feet below the surface. Some plant roots go beyond that to twelve or fifteen feet, holding the soil in place and supporting a network of organisms the the causal observer will not notice. The deep roots enable the grasses to quickly regrow when fires sweep across the plains. Bison loved this new growth.

Hardly any of that remains. Less than 1% of the original prairie is intact.

Free Roaming Buffalo at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge
Free Roaming Buffalo

Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge

The Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge provides a small glimpse of what once was amongst the soybean and corn fields of Iowa. The refuge is over 5000 acres, and contains small sections of remnant prairie. The refuge was established with the mission to restore the native Iowa tall grass prairie and oak savanna habitats. As part of the mission, the refuge is home to a herd of bison.

The visitor center is built into the hilltop, and like the prairie ecosystem, much of it is below the surface. The path through the exhibits winds down a sloped passage. The exhibits illustrate what is found at each level of the ecosystem, until the you reach the prairie dog tunnels where children can climb and play “underground.” The exhibits illustrate how deep and complex the fibrous roots of the grasses are, and introduce visitors to the animals that make the prairie their home – badger, fox, mouse, vole and bison. Swallows soar around the visitor entrance, and colonize the building’s sides for nesting sites.

Seeds collected at the refuge are collected and replanted in other ares of the refuge. Because the plants that grow in the remnant prairies of the refuge are uniquely adapted to the soil and other conditions of the the area. A big part of the Refuge’s mission is to collect and propagate native prairie plant seeds.

I like to think of myself as a naturalist, but walking through the prairie trails, I mostly just saw grass. And dickcissels. Every bird I saw was a dickcissel, which was pretty exciting since I hadn’t ever seen a dickcissel before visiting. When the wind blew, I remembered the descriptions in O. E. Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth of settlers becoming seasick from the sight of the waving grass.

Bison

The real draw to the refuge are the bison. The bison are confined to a 700 acre enclosure, part of which is close enough to the visitor center to view. I didn’t realize how lucky we were to see some of the herd from the visitor center until the volunteer hurried us over there. “Now’s your chance!” After looking at the bison from the visitor center and nearby trails, we drove out on the road that cuts through the bison enclosure. High up on the hill we could see about twenty animals, and a bright red calf laying in the short grass.

Later that weekend, we met a man who described driving through the refuge in winter. The bison were blocking the road, so he stopped the car to wait until it was clear. The herd surrounded the car, and proceeded to lick every grain of road salt from the windows and sides. “The car was rocking from side to side,” he said. “My daughters were quite impressed.”

As incredible as it is to see the herd of bison, the animals are not free-ranging. Fences hold them in, much like the prairie itself – rarely found outside protective borders.

Free Roaming Buffalo at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge
Free Roaming Buffalo

Maps, Nature and History