Amazing researchers and ranchers

Guest post by student Lauren Landis - 

This section revolving around wildlife restoration was extremely eye opening to me. We spoke with many amazing researchers and ranchers. Learning about both aspects of both nature and production was especially interesting. One of the first field experiences we encountered was doing nest surveys of both Meadow Lark and Chestnut-Collared Longspurs on Fort Belknap. Andrew Dreelin took us through the process of how he and his techs search for the nests by observing bird behaviors when anyone walks near a supposed nest. When the nest is found, a marker is placed 50 meters away from it. Andrew’s research is focused on how prairie dog communities influence grassland birds. Prairie dogs are thought to manage a good habitat for some avian species as they maintain short grasses and have an alarm system for oncoming predators. Prairie dogs are not viewed kindly upon, though, by neighboring ranchers. Their holes are seen as a hazard to livestock, and their excessive maintenance of grasses is thought to leave little left for cattle grazing. Under severe climatic conditions such as drought, I can see how this could pose a problem, but during a time of high productivity, grasses would be more nutritious.

We also got the opportunity to experience the process of netting and banding Pippits with Nancy Raginski. Nancy and her techs will post up tall poles and loop nets through to have top to bottom coverage in order to capture a bird which is lured with a decoy and a playback of a Pippit call. After capturing the bird into the net, they will carefully handle it so that they can get measurements, nail and feather samples, as well as banding and tagging the bird for satellite data collection. Not much is known about Pippets, aside from the fact that they do not return to the same breeding grounds every year after overwintering in areas like Mexico and Texas. Using MOTIS, researchers are able to collaborate and share data with each other as these species travel far and wide ranges across North America.

Later in the section we visited the research plots of Claire Bresnan, who is studying the social movement of bison and their effect on their surrounding environment. She uses drone technology to photograph each of her plots mixed with camera trapping and vegetation sampling to test the nutrition of plants between each camera. It is hard to believe that these outstanding creatures were once so abundant throughout the great plains, and they’re now both so few in numbers and still unwelcome by many locals. They are considered a threat to cattle populations due to the occurrence of brucellosis even though research shows that brucellosis is more present in elk populations and are in closer proximity to cattle populations.

Throughout the duration of this section, I was constantly reminded of the parallels and overlap of both grassland and wetland ecosystems. We learned about multiple avian species that utilize both of these ecosystems throughout the year. Not only do they house similar species, but they also have similar physical characteristics. The rolling hills of the grassland to me look very similar to that of dunes on the coast near wetlands. They also have similar ground properties as both wetlands and grasslands have very porous soil with large particles.

Sadly, both of these ecosystems are threatened by one big problem which is losing land to development and the economy. Fragmentation of land is one of the biggest threats to both grassland ecosystems and the local ranchers. With that, ranchers in the area should be more concerned with losing their land to these large corporations rather than that of conservation agencies working towards a sustainable end goal.

We learned so much about how many of the species of the prairie have coevolved with the grasslands; both plants and animals of the great plains rely on each other to keep the ecosystem balanced. With only a couple hundred years of human intervention, we have managed to almost completely shatter the grassland ecosystem through the obsession of land ownership and management. I hope one day that we can soon reach the goal of having one complete area for grassland species to thrive.