prairie conservation

Bird watchers, animal lovers and even those interested in plants and insects are taking notice: there seems to be less of almost everything on the prairie. Why are so many wild things seemingly disappearing? Commentator Rex Buchanan shares his thoughts.

The plains spotted skunk is becoming harder to find in the central U.S. states it calls home. As federal officials consider the skunk for federal protections, researchers and environmentalists are hoping to learn more about the long understudied species.

These ranchers tried to protect grassland from trees and shrubs in all the traditional ways. It didn't work. So they brought in hungry goats that turned woody plants into a cash stream.

The 345-kV transmission line will begin at the Buffalo Flats Substation near Garden Plain, Kansas, and end at the Delaware Substation near Delaware, Oklahoma. It will cross through western Sedgwick, Sumner, Cowley and Chautauqua counties.

From a field on an Illinois university campus, to rare, untouched land in Texas, here are some efforts to replant once-abundant prairie in the Midwest and Great Plains.

The region has always been dry, and it’s getting drier.

Nebraska ecologist Chris Helzer blends art and science to open people's eyes to an underappreciated ecosystem that is shrinking more and more every year.

The Biden Administration's Endangered Species Act listing of some animals native to Oklahoma is being challenged by Congress. But there are landowners taking it upon themselves to volunteer their fields for prairie restoration.

Prairies used to stretch across all of the central United States. Only a portion of that ecosystem still exists, but there are still some impressive sites in Kansas and Missouri as well as ongoing efforts to restore the native landscape.

A group of volunteers hope to bring native wildlife back into abundance by reestablishing grasslands that were wiped out after the European settlement of Missouri. Now in its third year, they've created a seed bank that provides free seeds to landowners who want to establish a prairie.