Conservation of Prairies Benefits Native Flora and Fauna

By James Ed. Ducey

Conservation of prairie-grass habitats of southeast Nebraska continues a success in providing places for native flora and fauna.

"Some of my most gratifying times have been while walking across a waving sea of grass and seeing plants not seen in most pastures," said Ernie Rousek, chairman of the conservation committee, Wachiska Audubon Society. "It is a great deal of satisfaction to see the orange mounds of butterfly milkweed in bloom in June. One of our conserved prairies has over 100 of these plants just in one corner. In July the bluish purple flowers of leadplant are a good indication the prairie has never felt the bite of the plow. The names of the plant prairie shoestring was given by settlers whose plowshares caused a popping noise as they severed these tough roots. Purple spires of several species of gayfeather are a pleasant sight in late summer."

"Local flora does not survive the intense grazing that generally occurs on the majority of pastures," Rousek said. The prairies preserved by the Wachiska group are cut for hay or burned, and not pastured.

Their generally small size is an influence on the types of the wild birds. A minimum extent of habitat is needed for many species to occur. Spring Creek Prairie and Nine Mile Prairie are well known in the bird annals.

"A number of birds depend upon prairies for nesting," Rousek explained. Some birds will make use of smaller prairie tracts, others like prairie chickens require much larger areas. A wild turkey flushing from a clump of big bluestem, revealing a big clutch of eggs is a rewarding sight. As is the mid-air song of the Bobolink or the meadowlark on a fence post."

Ongoing efforts of the Wachiska Audubon Society has protected four prairies through ownership:

Dieken Prairie, 12 acres bought in 1995

Wildcat Creek Prairie, 30 ac. in 1998

Lamb Prairie, 6 ac. in 2000

Storm Prairie, 20 ac. in 2004.

These prairies are open for public visits.

Wildcat Creek Prairie. Photo by Ernie Rousek.

The group has 20 prairies under conservation easement, distributed in 12 counties in southeast Nebraska, said Rousek, who has been involved in the prairie conservation efforts for the group for nearly three decades. These parcels range from four acres to 40 acres in size, and total over 400 acres. The names of various tracts are typically those of the people selling the easementm such as Beethe Prairie, Horacek Prairie and Brey Prairie.

"The first prairie easement Wachiska Audubon bought was in 1994, from Dorothy Heavey whose father, Henry Wulf died in 1972," Rousek said. "She owned the farm which had an excellent 4 acre prairie along Hwy. 34 ("O" Street), seven miles east of Lincoln. When Wachiska Audubon contacted her about protecting the prairie, she was very willing, especially when we told her that we would put up a sign on the prairie with her father's name on it." It is thus named Wulf Prairie.

At the August meeting of the society's conservation committee, Rousek led the team discussing prairie concerns: a new easement contract, management options, fixing a grade crossing used as an equipment access by a land owner, and other relevant business. There were a couple of signs that had been renovated. There was some news about the wetland environs at Yutan Prairie.

Some of the most recent prairie projects within Wachiska's large southeast Nebraska region are the result of an advertisement placed in several county papers last winter, asking land owners interested in protecting prairie areas on their farms, to contact the group, Rousek said. "We received about 15 replies. Most were not good prairies, but about five were quite good and we have signed two of these as easements in the summer of 2007.

"A dedication was held for a seven acre prairie north of Syracuse on July 15, 2007. This excellent prairie was owned by Forrest Halvorsen who was 89 years old," Rousek said. "His wife had died some years earlier and he wanted her name, as well as his on the sign. There were 72 people in attendance; many were Forrest's relatives."

"Each time the society gets a prairie easement, a 4' x 6' wood sign is constructed, then erected. The painted sign has the prairie owners name as well as that of Wachiska Audubon Society, which is the holder of the easement."

"A dedication is held for each prairie. We ask the owner to invite his friends and relatives; at times put a notice in the county paper and invite the public," he said. Easements, the makeup and geology of prairies, some prominent prairie plants are identified, and other information is given during a presentation by an Audubon member.

Dieken Prairie, July 2002 photo by Ernie Rousek.

During the August committee meeting, Dr. David Wedin discussed at length the status of Nine-mile Prairie, its surrounding land and zoning concerns and an initiative to have a strategic planning session among interested parties to discuss the prairie's management and use.

"I leased the 230 acre Nine Mile Prairie, in the name of Wachiska in 1978, from the Lincoln Airport Authority," Rousek said. It was during his tenure as president of the society. "The purpose was to 'tie up' the prairie while finding some way to protect it. I notified the UNL Agronomy and Biological Science Departments that they could again use the prairie. The first year there were 11 different courses that used the prairie as an outdoor classroom and for research. With a lease of $4,600 per year, the grass was cut for prairie hay and then sold to pay the lease, meanwhile trying various sources of funding to purchase the Prairie."

"Nine mile Prairie had been used by the University of Nebraska since the 1920s when it was 800 acres. The Air Force took over the Lincoln Airport in the 1950's and placed a 100 acre bomb storage area on a part of the Prairie, making the site off limits to the public, including the University. When the Air Base was deactivated in the early 1970s, The Lincoln Airport bought the Prairie for $200 an acre, as an investment."

"Wachiska had the lease on the prairie for four years. Funds for a purchase eventually became available through the University of Nebraska Foundation. Mrs. Neal Hall donated $69,000, which was one half of the purchase price. Many other community donations helped the cause."

Once the land was bought in 1982 by the University of Nebraska Foundation, Rousek started fifteen years on the property management board in 1983. During this time he designed and built a wooden kiosk which was placed at the prairie foot path entrance, where visitors could register. During the next four years there were visitors from every state and 17 foreign countries. He fixed fence, and did most of the mowing of trails, the entrance and roadways for the benefit of visitors, and other tasks during a tenure through 1998.

About 80 acres of Nine-mile Prairie is burned each year and Rousek helped on a number of those past burns. Dr. Jim Stubbendieck, of UNL, was often involved in planning and conducting these burns to vitalize the prairie.

During several of these years, the Wachiska Audubon Society held a Prairie Appreciation Day for the public each autumn, Rousek said. Tents were setup for speakers and exhibits and, there were those mown trails for prairie walks with "tour guides". A horse and buggy club gave rides.

Rousek's prairie roots extend deep to his first school years attending Komensky, a one room country school in central Nebraska. "It was completely surrounded by rolling hills of prairie, which usually, in the fall and spring, was our playground. We would dig and eat indian turnips and violet wood sorrel, and throw the 'arrows' of porcupine grass at each other, and play a game of 'hide and seek' among the hills," he said.

At the home place west of Ord, a regular job as a boy in the country, was herding "cattle on an unfenced 80 acres of prairie, woodland, and crops. I became familiar with various plants throughout their growth cycles. The Nebraska Weed Book helped with identifying many plants."

A keen interest in flora "steered" Rousek to a major in conservation and agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His profession was soil scientist for the Soil Conservation Service, a district manager for a hybrid corn company, and with plant seed research when he retired.

An unusual event on the Spring Creek Prairie got Rousek out among the grasses again. He led hikes and shared history of the prairie schooner ruts of the Nebraska-City-Fort Kearny trail on the hill side; then came the outdoor saxophone quintet concert, a event of the Meadowlark Music Festival, this past July, during the prairie flower season.

"Most of the people who own prairies and who wish to preserve them, are usually older," Rousek said. "They seem to look at the prairies as an unchanging connection with their earlier days, and perhaps with people who have since, passed on. The unchanging prairie may serve as a nostalgic bond with family members who may, or may not, have spent time on the prairie, and have passed on. Prairie owners have told me of their parents or grandparents who had owned their farm and the dates when these people bought the land or even homesteaded it. They tell of using horses to cut and rake the prairie hay, and then the stacking of it."

"Virgin prairies serve as a storehouse of soil which has not been contaminated by herbicides or insecticides and serves as a base line compared with cultivated fields. Prairie plants are well adapted for the often stressful climatic and soil conditions of the Great Plains where they serve to protect soil from erosion, yet furnish nutritious feed for livestock."

"Many prairie plants were used by plains Indians for medicinal, and other uses. Some years ago a doctor in Los Angeles doing research on the antibiotic properties of the root extract of the purple prairie coneflower (Echinacea), contacted me about getting some of the plants from prairies in this area. He had gotten plants from two other states previously. When I told him that it was possible, he made a plane trip to Lincoln, and we dug up several plants for his use. A couple of years later a national magazine reported of a very effective antibiotic which had been derived from echinacea roots. The source of this news was from - Los Angeles."