According to the National Park Service, the tallgrass prairie is “one of the rarest and most endangered ecosystems in the world.” It once covered 167 million acres in the middle of North America, stretching from the Red River Valley in Canada into Texas. Only about 4 percent of the tallgrass prairie that existed before the European settlement of North America still exists, most of it in the Flint Hills of Kansas.
The tallgrass prairie covered most of what’s now Iowa. Now, there’s no place where the tallgrass prairie is more endangered.
“Here in Iowa we lost 99.9 percent,” Professor Laura Jackson, director of the Tallgrass Prairie Center at the University of Northern Iowa, said. “If you only quote that figure as 99 percent, you’re off by 10-fold, because 99.9 percent of our original, remnant, ancient prairie is gone. Never to be recovered.”
The tallgrass prairie began to rapidly disappear in the 1830s, once the remarkable fertility of its soil was recognized. It was largely gone by the end of the 19th century. The Corn Belt was built on plowed-up prairie.
“Starting here in Cedar Falls, you can drive west for five hours at 70 miles an hour, and not see anything but corn or soybeans,” Jackson said. “Go east for five to eight hours, and you’ll basically not see anything besides corn and soybeans and Chicago. Going north, you still have to drive four or five hours before you get out of wall-to-wall corn and soybeans.”
“That’s a big area completely dominated by two crops made possible because the combination of the prairie with recent glaciation was a perfect combination for creating these incredible soils, which have been thoroughly exploited.”
The ancient tallgrass prairie may have been farmed out of existence in Iowa, except for that 0.1 percent, but there are efforts to restore and maintain sections of tallgrass prairie in the state. The efforts are limited in scope — nothing is going to loosen corn and soybeans’ grip on Iowa anytime soon — and restored prairie will never be exactly identical to the original, because too much has changed since wild prairie turned into cropland.
One of the biggest things — literally, one of the biggest — missing from most prairie restoration efforts is the bison.
Bison made the prairie what it was, through grazing, through the impact of thousands of roaming hooves, and also because the Indigenous peoples of the plains used fire to manage prairies, eliminating invasive species and restoring nutrients to the soil, to make sure it remained attractive to the bison they hunted.
The near extinction of the bison in North America through overhunting and habitat destruction is well-known to most people, at least in its general outline. The last sighting of any wild bison in Iowa happened when two were spotted near Spirit Lake in 1870. But before Iowa became a state, bison were almost as common on its prairies as Big Bluestem grass.
On July 11, 1820, Capt. Stephen Kearney, leader of an expedition across what became Iowa, noted in his journal “a large drove of Buffaloe to our left, probably 5 thousand.” That “drove of Buffaloe,” spotted in what’s now Worth County, wasn’t the only one roaming the 99-counties-to-be. To get an idea of what Kearney saw, albeit on a much smaller scale, you can head to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, approximately 20 miles east of Des Moines.
Bison or buffalo?
Which is the correct name for the official National Mammal of the United States? (President Obama signed a proclamation in 2016 giving the shaggy, humpbacked beasts that status.) Both are used so frequently that only a pedant would, say, insist Buffalo Wild Wings change their logo to more closely resemble Africa’s muscly, mostly bald bovine.
Scientifically, the North American version are bison; Bison bison is the scientific designation. (The European bison is Bison bonasus.) Bison bison has two subspecies, commonly called the plains bison and the wood bison. The latter, mostly found in Canada, is Bison bison athabascae. But for the plains bison, zoologists triple-downed. Its full name is Bison bison bison.
“This refuge was established to reconstruct tallgrass prairie,” Scott Gilje, refuge manager at Neal Smith, told Little Village. “That is our mission statement.”
Congress authorized the establishment of the refuge just outside the prairie-less Prairie City in 1990, mainly thanks to the work of Neal Smith, a Democrat who represented Central Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1995.
“Neal Smith wanted to create a legacy for the people of Iowa,” Gilje said. “A tallgrass prairie refuge. We were the first national wildlife refuge — there are now about 570 — to reconstruct tallgrass prairie.”
The farmland that became the refuge almost ended up being used for a very different purpose.
In the 1980s, a subsidiary of Iowa Power announced intentions to build a nuclear power plant there. Local residents pushed back against the plan, and Smith supported them. In 1991, one year after Congress authorized the Walnut Creek National Wildlife Refuge (its original name), the National Park Service bought the 3,600 acres Iowa Power had slated for its power plant. It was the first major purchase for the refuge, which now covers 6,000 acres.
In 1998, the refuge was renamed to honor Smith.
“The refuge was the largest tallgrass prairie restoration effort in the world at one point,” Gilje said. “Bringing tallgrass prairie back to the landscape was a huge undertaking from the moment the refuge was established. A lot of that reconstruction was done by hand.”
Seeds were harvested by hand from plants on the remaining patches of remnant prairie in the early days.
The first bison arrived in 1996. They were two important reasons for introducing the bison, Gilje explained.
“One is they were a natural presence on the Iowa landscape, and their grazing helps with the control of vegetation. They roam, they eat, that’s what they did on the original prairie. That’s what we wanted to bring back as one of our prairie management tools, along with fire and mechanical cutting.”
“The other reason is the visiting public,” Gilje continued, “People get to come and see bison in a natural landscape as best they can, versus seeing them in a zoo or something like that.”
The bison have fulfilled both missions. Neal Smith gets about 250,000 visitors a year. There’s no admission fee, and the refuge has trails for hiking through parts of the restored tallgrass prairie, as well as its restored oak savannah and sedge meadow, which are also parts of the pre-statehood landscape. There are also observation points from which you watch the bison and the small herd of elk that share their enclosure, as well as a five-mile-long driving route through bison enclosure (visitors must stay in their vehicles, no selfies with bison).
In March, a panel of experts assembled by USA Today named Neal Smith the Best National Wildlife Refuge for 2024. There are 570 national wildlife refuges across the country, at least one in every state. The panel cited Neal Smith’s bison and elk in its decision, calling the refuge “a living example of the historic prairie landscape, offering visitors the chance to observe these iconic species in a natural setting.”
“We manage the bison in as hands-off a way as possible,” Gilje said. “There’s no supplemental feeding, no veterinary visits. These bison are managed in the same way they’d be in the wild.”
“Our biology crew goes out and does a visual assessment of the bison, using binoculars to look at body composition, not getting too close. Just a visual check,” he explained. “The only time we do hands-on work is our annual bison-handling event. The new calves go through our chute, we’ll put a microchip in them for identification purposes and draw blood for genetic testing, and do some other basic procedures as well.”
There are more cows than bulls at Neal Smith — they make up about 60 percent of the herd, according to Gilje — and the social structure of bison is organized along matrilineal lines.
“The cows and their offspring — the calves, the yearlings — all stay together in a group,” Gilje said. “The mature bulls form bachelor groups and keep to themselves, except during breeding season when they all commingle. Then it’s like any other species, and they’re fighting for dominance on who gets to do the breeding.”
The restored prairie at Neal Smith is home to more than just bison and elk. It has “all your typical Iowa residents,” as Gilje puts it. “Whitetail deer, foxes, coyotes. We have a family of badgers that have taken up residence alongside the road.”
It also provides shelter for many bird species native to the prairie or who fly over Iowa on their annual migrations.
There are currently 67 bison at Neal Smith, including seven recently born calves, roaming across an 800-acre enclosure.
“Kind of our magic number we shoot for, based on the acres that we have and the vegetation, is about 55,” Gilje said. “Basically what we do with bison when there are more than 55 to 60 is donate the extra ones to different tribal entities or other conservation partners, like county conservation boards or groups like that that are looking to start their own conservation herds.”
Bison donated by Neal Smith to Meskawki in 2006 started the herd maintained by Meskwaki Natural Resources Department (MNR). There are now approximately 45 to 55 bison on just over 200 acres of mixed pasture and forest at the Meskwaki Settlement-Buffalo Refuge Area, according to MNR’s site.
“MNR treats the buffalo with Respect and treats them as Wildlife,” the site explains.
Polk County also received some of the bison moved from Neal Smith in 2006. The county has maintained a small number of bison at Jester Park since 1960.
By far the largest number of bison in Iowa can be found at Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve in Plymouth County, about 17 miles north of Sioux City. It’s also the largest continuous prairie in the state, featuring remnants of the original tallgrass prairie. The 3,300-acre preserve in the Loess Hills is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that is the world’s largest conservation organization.
“We operate in over 70 countries, in all 50 states,” TNC’s Iowa Director Graham McGaffin told Little Village. “We were founded in 1951, and we’ve had an Iowa chapter since 1963.”
TNC currently has 17 properties in Iowa, preserving a wide variety of endangered ecosystems, from Broken Kettle in the northwest to Land of White Swamp Oak Preserve in the floodplain of the Cedar River in Muscatine County.
Work on Broken Kettle began in 1992, with the purchase of the first section of prairie that makes up the preserve. It has expanded 21 times since then, with the most recent acquisition in 2022. The first bison arrived in 2008.
They were added to Broken Kettle, not just to create a new conservation herd, but also to work. Just like they do at Neal Smith.
“Our director of lands would say, we don’t have the prairie for the bison, we have the bison for the prairie,” McGaffin said. “They are a management tool to help us take care of the preserve for the other wildlife that use it.”
From the original 18 that arrived in 2008, the herd has grown to more than 150.
“We had a herd-size that was larger a few years ago, but we reduced its size during the three-years of drought we’ve just gone through,” McGaffin said. “Now that the drought has ended, we can think about increasing the number again.”
When Broken Kettle had to reduce the size of the herd, bison were transferred to TNC properties in other states wanting to start or expand herds, and they were also donated to the Intertribal Buffalo Council to be distributed to tribes looking to grow their herds.
The bison at Broken Kettle roam freely in a 2,000-acre enclosure that is separated from the rest of the preserve by strong fencing.
“That part of the property isn’t open to the public for their own safety,” McGaffin said. “But hundreds of acres at Broken Kettle are.”
As large as they are, Neal Smith and Broken Kettle together represent just a fraction of the prairie lands and bison herds that Iowa once had, and the state’s most widespread effort to reintroduce tallgrass prairie plants covers just a fraction of those two big operations.
The Tallgrass Prairie Center at UNI has been working to support county roadside management agencies around the state interested in planting prairie plants along their roads since it was founded in 1999. In fact, the center’s original name was the Native Roadside Vegetation Center.
In 1988, the Iowa Legislature passed a law making it in the public interest for roadsides to be used for diverse purposes. Roadside planting was recommended to support wildlife in addition to looking good. A roadside vegetation office was established at UNI, and eventually grew into the center.
“It was very natural to call it the Native Roadside Vegetation Center, because that’s where the money came from,” TPC Director Laura Jackson said.
The center still works with county roadside management agencies — “About 1,200 acres per year” of roadside are planted in prairie, Jackson explained. “Some counties opt out. They’re not interested in doing it.” — but its name was changed in 2006 to reflect the broad range of research and work it does.
One of the most important things the center does is make sure seeds from native Iowa prairie plants remain available.
“You can buy seed from a seed company that says ‘wildflower seed,’ but where did it come from?” Jackson said. “Everything is wild somewhere. The least expensive seed, especially when people started doing a lot of prairie planting, was from Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. There’s seed from Oregon and Pennsylvania. You can buy seed that comes from the Netherlands, that’s supposedly a native species, but it’s been bred for the cut-flower trade.”
“We want to be able to provide seed companies in our area with seed that comes from Iowa remnant prairies,” she continued. “We go out and collect seed in small quantities, and maximize the range of plants that we’re collecting and the range of locations, so that we get a lot of genetic diversity.”
Having a remnant prairie in your neighborhood is kind of like having a medieval cathedral. It’s so special, so rare.
Laura Jackson, director of UNI’s Tallgrass Prairie Center
The collected seeds are planted in the center’s greenhouse, and grow into plants that produce more seed.
“We harvest that seed and hold onto it in a cooler — we’ve got a big database, we know how old the seed is, where it came from, all that — and then when a native seed company decides there’s a market for something like wild strawberry, we release some of seed to them for a small fee,” Jackson said.
TPC’s newest big project is Irvine Prairie near the town of Dysart. The land was donated to the UNI Foundation by Kathy Irvine in memory of her husband David. The couple shared a love of the tallgrass prairie, and Kathy wanted to honor her late husband by having the land he used to farm in Benton County used for prairie restoration. Irvine donated 77 acres in 2018, and followed that up by donating a further 215 acres in 2023.
“We’ve been planting about 25 to 30 acres a year,” Jackson said. “Our last planting will be in the fall of 2028. When we’re finished planting it, it’ll be 292 acres with a very diverse species. We’re up to over 100 species of plants that have been established so far.”
“It’s beautiful. It’s open to the public, and we have hiking trails through the south unit of the property.
As successful as the restoration efforts at Irvine Prairie are, Professor Jackson is clear that restored prairies will never reach the same level of complexity as the original prairies, in part because our understanding of the ancient prairie is limited since so little of it remains. And those remnants are threatened.
“Remnant prairies are being taken over by invasive species,” she said. “The remnant prairies need a lot more care, they need a lot more resources going into managing them with fire, with grazing, if possible.”
“Having a remnant prairie in your neighborhood is kind of like having a medieval cathedral. It’s so special, so rare. It takes time and effort to take care of it properly. We really have a responsibility to future generations to protect that little bit that’s still left.”
Prairie-curious?
These spots are free and open to the public.
- Broken Kettle Grasslands Preserve
Butcher Rd, Westfield, Plymouth County
Open daily from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. - Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge
9981 Pacific St, Prairie City, Jasper County
Walking trail and Prairie Wildlife Auto-tour open daily from sunrise to sunset.
Visitor center open Wednesday through Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. - Irvine Prairie
1174 55th St, Dysart, Benton County
Open daily from sunrise to sunset - Herbert Hoover National Historic Site
110 Parkside Dr, West Branch, Cedar County
Visitor center open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily
Site grounds open 24 hours
This article was originally published in Little Village’s July 2024 issue.
