Fall 2011 Update

Minnesota Prairie Recovery Project page 7

Nature’s Comebacks page 3

Students Take Action for Naturepage 6

IN THIS ISSUE:

Prairies to PinesNews from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota

Male prairie chickens display on their booming grounds © Nathan Lovas Photography

Conservation News in Brief

2 | Prairies to Pines

The Prairies to Pines update includes Conservancy news and success stories from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. We welcome your feedback, so please share your thoughts with us at canderson@tnc.org.

Conservancy Secures Land for National Wildlife Refuge

Honoring the wishes of devoted conserva-tionists, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently added 150 acres to the Crane Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in central Minnesota.

Created with the Conservancy’s help in 1992, Crane Meadows has a goal of acquiring 13,000 acres that are critical for sandhill cranes and other migratory birds. A lack of funding has slowed the refuge’s growth, which currently exists as just 2,000 scattered acres.

A 150-acre family farm with excellent wildlife habitat was within the refuge’s acquisition boundaries. Shortly before longtime landowners Ed and Audrey Veith passed away, they informed FWS officials that they hoped their heirs would convey the property to the refuge.

Serendipitously, the Conservancy and FWS had funding available from a North American Wetland Conservation Act grant. The property was the perfect fit, and its

creeks and savannas will provide a haven for wildlife and a legacy of which the Veith family can be proud.

“Mob Grazing” Can Help Prairies Grow

In western South Dakota, the neighbors’ cattle have been invited onto Conservancy grazing allotments — at no charge for a limited time only.

While the idea might not make sense to a rancher—who’d give away their precious grazing rights? — the Conservancy expects that so-called “mob grazing” will improve the health and diversity of federal grasslands it manages in Conata Basin, one of the largest and most intact grassland landscapes in the Great Plains.

“Prairie plants can’t germinate if the seeds just lie on top of the ground,” says Bob Paulson, Western Dakotas Program Director. “Organic matter needs to be pounded into the ground and at just the right time with just the right moisture levels in the soil. Bison would have done this in the past, but we suspect that large herds of cattle will work fine, too.”

The result is that more than 400 head of cattle will mingle, feed and stomp on Conservancy grazing allotments for a few weeks before heading home — leaving the prairie to thrive in their wake.

Conservancy Develops Ecological Indicators for Freshwater Management

Signed into law in 2008, the historic Great Lakes Compact seeks to “protect, conserve, restore, improve and effectively manage” the waters and the water-dependent natural resources of the Great Lakes Basin.

This is no small order, and the Conservancy is one of a host of partners and agencies helping make the vision a reality.

In Minnesota, the Conservancy received funding from Crystal Light® to develop ecological indicators that complement the state’s existing water management system. These new tools will help Minnesota ensure clean freshwater supplies for the future while protecting instream flows needed to sustain the diversity of life within its lakes, rivers and streams.

As a leader in freshwater conservation in the U.S. and around the world, the Conservancy expects to share these methods with other communities in the Great Lakes region that seek to more sustainably manage their lands and waters.

Cattle grazing on Conservancy allotment in Conata Basin © Bob Paulson/TNC

Enjoying the waters of Lake Superior © Chris Anderson/TNC

Sandhill cranes in flight © Carlton Ward, Jr.

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FEATUREARTICLE

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The Masked Bandit of the PrairieIt was a black-footed ferret, an animal described in 1851 by naturalists John James Audubon and John Bachman, yet so secretive that decades later many doubted its existence. Ferrets spend most of their time underground, living in the burrows of prairie dogs that they hunt at night. They are voracious predators; it’s estimated that a ferret can eat as many as 150 prairie dogs a year. Their hunting habits, combined with a black stripe that runs across their face, have caused some to call them the masked bandit of the prairie.

Ferrets once could be found throughout the Great Plains, wherever there were large prairie dog towns. But prairie dogs have been considered pests and were eradicated from 97 percent of their range. The reduction in prey combined with outbreaks of canine distemper disease made ferrets scarce. By 1979, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the ferret was probably extinct.

The Wyoming ferrets were found not a moment too soon. An outbreak of distemper reduced the more than 100 animals found there to just a few dozen; in a last ditch effort, 18 were captured to begin a captive breeding program. They proved prolific and in 1991 biologists began placing ferrets back into the wild.

Conservancy staff members work with partners to help save black-footed ferrets in Conata Basin © Linda Nguyen/TNC

Conata Basin is home to one of the largest black-footed ferret populations in the wild © Bob Paulson/TNC

Black-footed ferrets are one of the most endangered mammals in North America © U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Nature’s Comebacks

Nature is resilient when given the opportunity to recover. Here are three success stories from The Nature Conservancy’s work in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Thirty years ago, John Hogg’s dog killed an animal he couldn’t recognize. “It looked like a mink, but I knew it wasn’t a mink,” Hogg recalled. His wife Lucille thought it so unusual, she took it to the local taxidermist. The startled taxidermist called the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish — the Hoggs had brought him an animal thought to be extinct.

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KettledrummersIt’s a rite of spring on the tallgrass prairie. Male greater prairie chickens gather for early-morning displays called “booming:” the birds stamp their feet, fan their feathers, and inflate throat pouches to make a sound like someone drumming on a kettle — all to attract a mate.

It’s a spectacle that Minnesotans were at risk of losing. Prairie chickens used to be abundant; they were a popular game bird in the early twentieth century and hunters took thousands every year. But prairie chickens need prairie, and much of their grassland turned into farmland. The birds became scarce.

Fortunately, the grasslands that cover the gravelly beach ridges that were once the shoreline of Glacial Lake Agassiz in northwestern Minnesota were not good for agriculture. In the 1970s, the Conservancy raised funds to protect more than 8,000 acres of native prairie including land within the Agassiz Beach Ridges landscape. The Conservancy expanded its efforts to include restoring chicken habitat. A good example is the Glacial Ridge Project near Crookston. When complete, the project will create more than 24,000 acres of prairie and wetland benefitting prairie chickens and many other kinds of wildlife.

Among the early sites for ferret releases was Conata Basin in South Dakota, where the Conservancy owns and manages two ranches.

Conata Basin is a 142,000-acre landscape of mixed-grass prairie near Badlands National Park. Its large prairie dog towns are prime ferret habitat, and the ferrets living there are producing enough young that animals are now being caught for release at other reintroduction sites. Captured ferrets are quarantined at the Conservancy’s Double Bar 7 Ranch before they are shipped out. These wild-bred animals adapt quickly to their new homes. “I think of Conata Basin as the cradle of ferret recovery,” says Travis Livieri, a biologist who studies ferrets in the basin and throughout North America.

Ferrets are still endangered. Sylvatic plague, lethal to both ferrets and prairie dogs, is a serious threat that spread to Conata Basin in 2008. Livieri and other biologists inoculate ferrets against the disease, and are monitoring the population. The Conservancy is helping preserve ferret habitat by sharing grazing lands with neighboring ranchers, finding ways to manage the land so both cattle and wildlife can prosper. In this healthy prairie ecosystem, bison, bighorn sheep, burrowing owls and swift fox all thrive together with prairie dogs and about 200 black-footed ferrets — 20 percent of the entire wild population.

The Conservancy’s Bluestem Prairie preserve is one of the best remaining tallgrass prairies and a great place to see prairie chickens © TNC

Juvenile common tern © Jim WilliamsGreater prairie chicken © Nathan Lovas Photography

The result is more chickens: more than 7,000 birds in Minnesota, estimated at last count. There are enough birds that until recently, northwestern Minnesota prairie chickens were trapped and moved to Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota and southwestern Minnesota to rebuild bird populations in those areas. The birds are doing well, and kettledrummers can now be heard in places where the prairie was once quiet in early spring.

The Buffalo of the WaterLong ago, Native Americans used to catch what they called the Buffalo of the Water — immense lake sturgeon that could exceed 100 pounds and reach seven feet in length. But lake sturgeon are seldom seen now; they are threatened or endangered throughout most of their original U.S. range.

A commercial fishery for sturgeon proved unsustainable. The fish live more than 100 years and mature slowly — females

typically don’t spawn until their 20th year (often later) and they don’t spawn every year. Water pollution and dams, which block sturgeon from spawning grounds, made their survival more difficult. By the mid twentieth century the western Lake Superior population was wiped out.

Historically, the St. Louis River Estuary near Duluth was prime sturgeon spawning habitat. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reasoned the estuary could produce sturgeon again, and from 1983 through 2001 stocked hatchery-raised fingerlings. By 2007, those fish were big enough to spawn and began returning to the St. Louis River.

But the spawning habitat wasn’t right — the sturgeon needed large river rocks arranged in the shallows to create turbulent, well-oxygenated water for their eggs to hatch. The Conservancy

coordinated a $150,000 project to restore their spawning grounds. Funding was provided by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through a $75,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The Minnesota DNR provided a matching in-kind contribution by placing 1,500 tons of rock below the river’s Fond du Lac Dam in 2009.

The new habitat is perfect for spawning sturgeon, walleye and smallmouth bass. Downstream, the Conservancy protected Clough Island, important shoreline habitat used as a nursery by juvenile lake sturgeon and other native fish. In 2011, sampling nets captured tiny fry sturgeon — proof that the fish are now reproducing again in the river. How many have hatched is unknown, but DNR fisheries biologist John Lindgren is ecstatic, “If you find ten fry, some say there are really ten thousand. It’s a huge success story.”

“It’s great news,” adds Peggy Ladner, director of the Conservancy’s work in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. “If the sturgeon are coming back, we know that what we are doing is working — and we want to do work that gets results. And what we’ve learned through our successes with ferrets, prairie chickens and sturgeon can be applied to other conservation efforts. It provides hope for these and other species and for people, too. Our work is making it possible for future generations to enjoy a quality of life that includes nature.”

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Go Online for More of Nature’s Comebacks!For more photos and information on lake sturgeon go online to nature.org/minnesota. And if you’d like to see prairie chickens on their booming grounds at Bluestem Prairie or Glacial Ridge, check back at nature.org/minnesota in February to learn how to make a reservation for a viewing blind!

The American BisonThe Conservancy’s first bison herd was established at Ordway Prairie in South Dakota more than two decades ago. Now, the Conservancy has more than a dozen herds including in Mexico and a new one this year in Missouri. Find out how our staff in North Dakota and South Dakota is helping this iconic Great Plain species at nature.org/northdakota or nature.org/southdakota.

LEFT In the spring, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources looks for adult lake sturgeon around large rocks placed below the Fond du Lac Dam to provide spawning habitat © Chris Anderson/TNCABOVE Lake sturgeon © Eric Engbretson

6 | Prairies to Pines

STEWARDSHIP SPOTLIGHT

Students Take Action for NatureFour young men from an Atlanta suburb were introduced to the wide-open prairie and the star-filled night sky for the first time in their lives this summer in North Dakota.

The high school seniors from Arabia Mountain High School in Lithonia, Georgia were participating in the Conservancy’s Leaders in Environmental Action for the Future (LEAF) program, an ambitious effort to empower the next generation of conservation leaders. Special thanks to the Toyota USA Foundation for its generous support of the LEAF program in North Dakota.

The students, all age 17, helped build fences, identify native plants, collect prairie seed and remove invasive species at Conservancy preserves in North Dakota.

Here’s what they had to say about their experience:

LEAF interns (from l to r) Anthony Goring, Charles Glover, Nile Pitts, Brandon Levester and their mentor Robert Buggs at Cross Ranch © Michael Johnson/Washburn Leader-News

“When we first got there and got out of the airport all we saw was land and land and land. I’ve never seen that much land in my life. Seeing bison was great too. I never thought I’d see an animal that size in my life. I wish I would have been able to touch one.”

— Anthony Goring

“This was the first job I ever had. I never really had to do hard work before and it was a good experience. It gave me my first sense of independence.”

— Brandon Levester

“A couple of nights in, we looked up and just saw an enormous amount of stars. So bright. They felt so close. That was really cool.”— Nile Pitts

“I had no idea what it was going to be like. Oh boy, it was a big change coming from the city. We saw bison, cattle, snakes, different types of ground squirrels. The deer flies are horrid.”

— Charles Glover

Minnesota Prairie Recovery ProjectImmediate funding needed

In 2008, Minnesota voters passed the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment to protect the state’s natural and cultural heritage; funds for fish and wildlife habitat are made available through the Outdoor Heritage Fund.

The Conservancy’s Minnesota Prairie Recovery Project, which was created to conserve the state’s remaining prairies, received funds in 2010, and again in 2011. But without private support from Conservancy members the project will not succeed.

While public funds offset much of the costs for prairie acquisition and land management, they cannot be used for program administration or ongoing business costs — functions that are critical to our ability to implement the Minnesota Prairie Recovery Project.

Each dollar donated to the project leverages five dollars in state and federal monies.

Donor support of the project also allows the Conservancy and its partners to test a new financial model for conservation by demonstrating the economic potential of conservation grazing and periodic harvesting for hay or bioenergy. The income the Conservancy receives will help offset the costs of property taxes and long-term management, and is expected to show private landowners how their lands can be worked in ways that benefit nature and their pocketbooks.

With only about 1% of Minnesota’s original tallgrass prairie still intact, there is an urgent need to preserve the remaining 90,000 acres of unprotected prairie. We need your help so that we can protect our prairies — the most endangered, least protected habitat type on Earth — today and for tomorrow.

HOTPROJECT

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The Conservancy acquired Spring Prairie Preserve under the Minnesota Prairie Recovery Project © Richard Hamilton Smith

How Nature Works Online!Nature Works, a new digital feature, explores some of today’s most pressing conservation topics through thought-provoking articles, slideshows and videos. Find out how you can engage and encourage others to connect more deeply to the conservation movement.

See how nature works for you and what you can do for nature. Visit nature.org/minnesota today!

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Wind turbines on cropland © Jim Richardson

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Fly-fishing on Minnesota’s Root River © Mark Godfrey/TNC

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