Track 10—The Value of Visitors

     Restoring the prairie is a difficult job and you may have noticed a few management tools being used.

     During your drive you most likely saw land management in action. The refuge staff attempts to conduct prescribed burns on the prairie. Fire plays a role in recycling nutrients and helping native plants by clearing away less fire tolerant invasive plants. Wildfire was once a natural cycle in the prairie but today the refuge uses a combination of controlled fires and mowing to simulate that process.

     If you hop out of the car to explore the Oak Savanna you may notice trees that have had their bark scraped away. This is a management tool to remove unwanted trees by allowing them to decay slowly and provide habitat and nutrients to the surrounding plants. The process is known as girdling and has been used for hundreds of years.

     Of all the tools at our disposal, you are the most important, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and to which shall never be seen again.”  If you have questions about the refuge or how you can support places like Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, ask the volunteers or rangers in the Prairie Learning and Visitor Center. Thank you for visiting a piece of your prairie.