Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Wildlife Habitat Management on the
Northern Prairie Landscape
Introduction
Before settlement by Europeans, the northern Great Plains of North America was
a vast prairie grassland ecosystem, dominated by grazing bison (Bison bison)
and fires set by nature or by native Americans. Settlement drastically changed
the landscape; now the bison have virtually gone and the prairie has largely
been converted to cropland. Ninety-six percent of the land is privately owned
and managed for current income. The US Fish and Wildlife Service and other natural
resource agencies own tracts of land, often small ones, that they manage to
meet agency objectives. The current landscape is a mosaic of these public and
private lands. Agencies cannot manage their holdings as islands unto themselves;
wildlife rarely meet their life requisites within those boundaries, but move
freely between public and private lands to meet their needs.
The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly the Prairie Pothole Region
ecosystem and indicate how it has been altered, especially as a habitat for
migratory birds. We then discuss objective setting for management, mention
a few tools available at the landscape level, and discuss some examples of
successful use of these tools in management efforts.
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Next Section -- The Prairie Pothole Region
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey