During last year’s BioBlitz at the University of Iowa’s eight-acre prairie restoration project — the Ashton Prairie Living Laboratory (APLL) — 52 volunteers observed 238 different species of plants, fungi, insects, arachnids and birds, as well as one frog (an American bullfrog), which brought the observed species total to 239. All 239 were spotted in […]
prairie
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘You Were Never Lost: Poems from the Tallgrass Prairie’ by Suzanna de Baca
Suzanna de Baca instills a subliminal radiance within her debut poetry collection, You Were Never Lost: Poems from the Tallgrass Prairie. Its contents reflect her accumulated experiences from an artist residency at the White Rock Conservancy in Coon Rapids, Iowa. The 5,500 acres of prairie, woodland, pasture and river valley protected along the Middle Raccoon […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Wildfire destroys, but ‘good fire’ keeps tallgrass ecosystems alive. In Iowa, more women are picking up the drip torch.
Just after 12:30 p.m. on June 2, a group of 13 women and nonbinary folks gathered in a loose circle at the base of a ridgeline at Stone State Park. They were dressed in the standard outfit for prescribed-fire practitioners: flame-resistant Nomex yellow work shirts and green pants, heavy leather boots, yellow helmets and shatter-resistant […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Bison made the prairie what it was. Iowa conservationists hope they can do it again.
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 […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Amid ‘the most altered landscape in America,’ this 100-acre plot in Johnson County remains rich and wild
Before the first Europeans arrived in what would become Iowa, most of the land here was covered by wild prairie plants. Bison and elk once grazed in the northwest and central regions, and black bears populated the woodlands and brush in the eastern corridor. Around 85 percent of Iowa’s landscape was prairie, but today a […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Controlled prairie burns in Iowa City parks will begin at Hickory Hill Park on Thursday
A controlled burn of the prairie in Hickory Hill Park is scheduled for Thursday, wind and weather conditions permitting, the Iowa City Parks and Recreation Department said on Tuesday. The Hickory Hills fire is the first of five controlled burns in city parks the department plans for April.
