BIODIVERSITY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3
“In this landscape, high-quality habitat management and wildfire risk reduction are one and the same,” says Ryan Gauger, who serves as TNC’s fire and stewardship manager in Missouri and supervises the Habitat Strike Teams. Prescribed fire is one of the predominant tools the strike teams use to open forests and stop the succession process that can turn prairies into savannas and savannas into dense, unhealthy forests if shrubs and trees are left unchecked. Prescribed fire is just one tool in the toolbox of land managers. During those weeks and months when prescribed fire is either not available or recommended, the Habitat Strike Teams turn to other methods— everything from hand tools to heavy machinery—and carefully targeted herbicide spraying to beat back unwanted species. Given the typically narrow windows for burning, that is where a large part of the battle against invasives is fought. Tanner’s home base is Wah’Kon-Tah Prairie. The 4,040-acre preserve near El Dorado Springs, between Springfield and Kansas City, is the largest protected prairie complex in the Osage Plains, and TNC co-manages it with the Missouri Department of Conservation. Outside of fire season, Tanner spends much of his time working back and forth across grasslands, battling invasives.
On a broiling day in mid-July, he heads out along a two-track dirt road. The temperature has already hit 98 degrees by midday, and a cell phone weather app helpfully points out that the humidity makes it feel more like 104. Tanner passes buried buckets where visiting researchers created temporary homes for the American burying beetles being reintroduced to the prairie. A pair of quail race out in front of his UTV, an apparent attempt to lure this perceived threat away from a nest hidden in the grass. The height of wildflower season has passed, but there are still the sunny coronas of compass plants, delicate purple bundles of Missouri ironweed and the odd stalk of cream false indigo that still has a few white petals attached. “It kind of looks like it’s sticking its tongue out at you,” Tanner says, pausing to gently lift one of the little legume’s flowers with his fingers. Riding through the prairie here is a reminder of both the challenge and importance of managing such a diverse habitat. The pollinators flitting from flower to flower, raptors soaring overhead and an occasional deer spotted in the grasses are only a hint of the amount of life packed into every square meter. Tanner has settled into a summer rhythm: In the mornings when it’s cooler, he spot sprays individual stems of Lespedeza cuneata
There are plans for a fourth in the Grand River Grasslands, pending funding. The Habitat Strike Teams are designed to be agile and highly collaborative. Members might start a week hacking down invasives on a TNC preserve and finish it by plugging into a multi-agency burn crew, adding the extra hands needed to conduct prescribed fires around the state. Funded in part by a Cohesive Strategy: Cross Boundary Grant from the U.S. Forest Service as well as the Missouri Department of Conservation, the aim of the Habitat Strike Teams includes a strong focus on working with conservation partners and private landowners to mitigate the risks of wildfires and support the development of high-quality habitats, rich in biodiversity and resilient to our changing climate. Landscapes across North America evolved with regular fires, both sparked naturally by lightning and set by Indigenous people who developed controlled burning techniques over thousands of years. But a century’s worth of federal policies that sought to exclude fire from the land allowed fuels to pile up and unwanted species of plants to gobble up habitats at the expense of native plants. Restoring balance to those ecosystems can reduce the risk of harmful fires and act as a conservation tool, regenerating natural systems.
THIS PAGE The weather influences when and where Tanner works. © Doyle Murphy/TNC A grasshopper hitches a ride on the UTV. © Doyle Murphy/TNC
4 MISSOURI : ACTION AND IMPACT
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