Tallgrass Prairie Preserve docents convened March 5, 2005, for their annual reorientation session. For the first time, this year?s event was held in the new Ecological Research Station at the preserve. Harvey Payne, director of the preserve, and Bob Hamilton, assistant director and director of science and stewardship for the preserve, were featured speakers for the event.

Fall color at the Tallgrass Prairie

Payne said the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is one of The Nature Conservancy?s premier preserves and that the Conservancy is truly a science-based organization. He said a tremendous amount of science work takes place on the preserve which attracts a wide array of scientists. That, coupled with the fact an average of more than 10,000 people from all over the world visit the preserve each year shows the place receives quite a bit of traffic.

Payne complimented the docents for what they do at the preserve and said their presence there has a lot to do with the impression visitors get when they visit the place. He said the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve office in Pawhuska receives lots of calls from visitors wanting to know if the Visitor?s Center is going to be open because if it is, that means docents will be present. The interaction of docents with preserve visitors makes a positive difference with people and helps them leave with a good memory of their visit.

Another critical aspect for how people feel about the preserve is the way it looks. Docents have a self-imposed program called ?Adopt-a-Mile? whereby the county roads inside the preserve are assigned to individual docents on a housekeeping per mile basis. The idea is that when a docent is scheduled to work at the preserve, they will pickup the trash that accumulates in the bar ditches along their assigned mile. Payne said this program has really helped maintain the cleanliness of the preserve and hopes to see it extended further south of the main entrance. Unfortunately, this ?Adopt-a-Mile? program is necessary because there are lots of inconsiderate people out there who don?t hesitate to throw their empty beer cans and soft drink containers out their vehicle window rather than discard them in a more thoughtful way.

Payne said the preserve is well-endowed, is on very firm financial footing, and that everything is going to be done to keep it that way. He said it is a self-sustaining operation because of the people around the country and around the state that cared enough to make the preserve a reality. He said the generosity of people who support the preserve is most impressive if not a bit over-whelming, He cited the donations from people like Helmerich and Payne, Fin Tube, and Tech Tube for the tens of thousands of feet of round steel they gave that was trucked up by volunteers and cut to length by volunteers. The state-of-the art corral system would not have been possible were it not for those generous gifts. The marvelous gift of 300 head of bison in 1993, by Kenneth and Diana Adams of Bartlesville provided the starter herd for the preserve was also cited. More impressive is the fact that gift was given when the price for bison was a lot higher than it is today.

Payne said direct gifts from people that have visited the preserve and seen what is taking place here upon returning home often will send in a monetary gift. He specifically mentioned one lady in Greenwich, CT who sent in $2,500 and asked how the herd was dong. People love the place and become personally attached to it. Others send in money in the name of a deceased relative. He emphasized these gifts arise from their positive experience here and the docents are the ones that have helped make that experience positive.

Bob Hamilton said the bison herd size is approximately 90% of target; which is 2,600 - 2,700 animals counting summer calves. He said the bison unit is up to a little over 21,000 acres now and that in the fall of 2006 an additional 2,000 acres will be added bringing the bison unit up to its target size of 23,000 acres. So right now, both the bison herd and bison unit are at 90% of target.

Hamilton said a large part of the preserve will be in an experimental cattle treatment program. The original plan was to put about 90% of the preserve into the bison unit. With the work that?s been taking place with OSU and increasingly looking at some of the conservation threats in the greater Flint Hills landscape, Hamilton said that if we?re going to talk about land management in the Flint Hills, we?ve got to talk about cattle.

Hamilton reiterated that the Flint hills comprise a livestock dominated economy. In order for The Nature Conservancy to interact with livestock producers, we?ve shifted our thinking into conducting a comprehensive cattle research mode. Subsequently, some 11,000 acres of the preserve will remain as cattle pasture for experimental treatment long term.

Hamilton said fire is an important aspect of the research taking place at the preserve and it involves both the bison and cattle units on the preserve. Patch burning has been part of the bison unit research for some time and eventually will be applied to the cattle unit. He said, ?Our burning program will become more complex in the future as we start applying patch burning to the entire cattle pasture.?

The bison unit is on a three-year fire return program. This means a third of the unit gets burned each year. The bison unit currently is 21,000 acres, so one-third of that, or 7,000 acres gets burned every year. That 7,000 acres is split among spring, when 40% or 2,800 acres is burned, summer (20% ? 1,400 acres), and fall (40% - 2,800 acres). Typically three or four burns will be conducted in each of the three seasons rather than burn it all at one time. A random selection process is used to determine what cells will be burned each year and the amount of fuel to burn in those cells. Hamilton said the whole idea behind the burning process is to use a heterogeneity approach which provides a shifting-patches, quilty-looking landscape that promotes diversity of plant life on the prairie.

He said the objective is for the bison to be as natural a component on the prairie as possible. ?The bison provide ecological services to the prairie ? that?s why we put them there,? he said. Bison probably represent one of the real success stories regarding wildlife conservation in the U.S. There are probably 300,000-400,000 bison now in the U.S. Once on the brink of extinction, bison are now back as an economical and ecological contributor to our society. Hamilton said they had not looked at bison as a species target because they are not rare or endangered.

3-24-05 Bill Rinehart, Conservancy volunteer (918)299-4104