Returning The Prairie To The Buffalo?

[lopaka]

Seventeen years ago two professors from the east coast pointed out that the great agriculture experiment in the Great Plains was simply not working out. In Kansas, for example, the population of the state increased by 1.2 million people between 1900 and 2000. Yet more than half the counties have fewer people now then they did then. And many of those places have very elderly populations.

Frank and Deborah Popper were ridiculed and vilified for suggesting wide swaths of Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, be given back to how it was originally: a buffalo commons. Now that the population decline has actually exceeded their projections, some of their harshest critics are coming around to their side. Including a former governer.

Full story at http://www.ljworld.com/section/archive/story/160685

 

[Anonymous]

I would love to see it!

Imagine herds of Bison roaming the plains again! I would love to live to see that. I always imagined I'd have to wait for the fall of "The White Man" before it could happen, but now....?

I can only imagine how good it would be for the prairie ecology. I wonder if there would have been a "dustbowl" type situation going on during the Depression if the Bison had still been present?

Trace Mann


[bing! my 200th post!]

 

[lopaka]

Dust Bowl Days Are Back...

Drought menacing western half of Kansas

Dust storms rekindle thoughts of 1930s' Dust Bowl in state

The Associated Press

Sunday, June 6, 2004

Ransom — Conditions are so dry in western Kansas that massive clouds of blowing dirt are reminding some of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.
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After five years of drought in southwest Kansas, the driest May on record didn't bring much solace for dryland farmers who are struggling to get anything to grow. And there are no signs that the long dry spell will be ending anytime soon.

"I wish I had some words of wisdom and positive things to say," said Larry Ruthi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Dodge City. "But there is no indication that we are going to break anything -- instead, continue with the dry weather."

Dodge City received only a quarter inch of rain in May, typically one of the wettest months of the year. That broke the previous record low rainfall mark of .40 of an inch set in 1886.

A massive Memorial Day weekend dust storm caught Val Beryle of Ransom by surprise. He said he thought he was watching a storm cloud roll in on May 29 when he realized it was instead a billowing cloud of dirt.

"It's just so darn dry," he said. "This is the driest that I can ever remember, and I'll be 70 in October."

Full Story:

http://ljworld.com/section/stateregional/story/172326

(There's a helluvan amazing picture at the link)

Also a pretty good overview of the depopulating of the Plains and that the future could indeed be the past in the May issue of National Geographic Magazine. (not on-line, ASFAIK)

 

[PeniG]

Ah, Kansas. We used to cross it on the turnpike all the time (to get from West Texas to Iowa). A desert of monoculture and Howard Johnson's (for you Brits, a hotel/restaurant chain with a distinctive orange roof). After the divorce, when it was just us girls going, Mom got sick of the turnpike and got off. Suddenly we found that it can be a very pretty state.

The entire Midwest has been worrying me for some time, ever since I started noticing that people or (more probably as small farmers become the exception rather than the norm) corporations were cutting down their windbreaks. Very, very bad idea.

But then, so is dry farming. I've never understood why Kansans didn't turn to ranching, for which the land is patently better suited. Though less romantic, properly run cattle are also good for the prairie. What you need is large grazers coming through an area at certain parts of the cycle of growth, mowing, fertilizing, and distributing seeds.

My prediction (I'm pessimistic this week) is that small farmers will fail, corporations will buy them up, and agribusiness will complete the destruction of the prairie, then gain large tax benefits by donating the ravaged land to the public without any funds attached.