The Osage Ablaze
A photographer’s paradise — waves of gold now blanket a remaining portion of the largest, unplowed, protected tract of the tallgrass prairie grasslands that once stretched from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Sweeping vistas with backdrops of incredible sunsets are some of the pleasures experienced by visiting the Tallgrass Prairie, north of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in Osage County.
The untouched oasis of nature which greeted the earliest visitors to North America remains today, thanks to the Nature Conservancy. In 1989, that organization began purchasing land, and over the next five years it raised millions of dollars in donations. The preserve consists of 38,700 wildly-beautiful acres. The tallgrasses: Big Bluestem, Indiangrass and Switchgrass, can grow as tall as eight feet! And if you visit in the spring, images of the countless tiny, intricate wildflowers abound amidst the lush green carpet.
The goal of this wonderful Conservancy is to ‘recreate a functioning tallgrass prairie ecosystem using fire and bison.’ The Conservancy says that fire is reintroduced to the landscape using carefully controlled, prescribed burns, conducted at different times of the year to mimic the original seasonality of presettlement fires. Native plants and animals of the tallgrass prairie adapted to the influence, and are dependent upon it to maintain the ecosystem. Fire increases the vigor and flowering of many plant species and grazing by bison helps shape the presettlement prairie. The Conservancy introduced three-hundred buffalo which they anticipate will eventually grow to approximately twenty-seven hundred animals freely roaming on twenty-three thousand acres of the preserve. The variety of habitats supports many prairie plants and animals, including: prairie chickens, numerous breeding birds (including bald eagles), whitetail deer, bobcats, armadillos, beavers, woodchucks, badgers and coyotes.
For anyone who laments the disappearance of “native America,” this is a location to add to your “must see” list. Viewing our buffalo friends alone is worth the trip!
Vista photos available by Sue Monkress at:
photos: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=39363
Sue Monkress is a freelance writer on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. An Oklahoma native, she especially enjoys writing about the outdoors and her travels.