Anita Springer convened the 2008 Docent Reorientation at 09:30 hours in the Science Research Station of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve on Saturday, 23 February 2008. Our meeting was attended by approximately fifty docents and visitors. Prevailing weather was cold and wet; Betty Turner got a good picture of the early morning frost on the prairie grasses.
After Anita's introduction, Dennis Bires took the floor where he recognized Anita’s organizational effort and called for a round of applause. Similarly, he recognized Anne & Tonda’s good work providing coffee and cookies.
Dennis announced these future events:
Dennis said that the road from Bartlesville to Ponca City is designated as the Osage Scenic Byway, as reported in the last newsletter.
Dennis mentioned too that the Docent Survey didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, as reported in the last newsletter.
Samples of the recruiting posters were passed for those who have somewhere to place them.
Dennis asked David Turner to give a report on the status of the embroidered docent shirts. David said that SignTech in Pawhuska remains ready and willing to embroider shirts at a cost of $14. Interested docents are expected to provide their own shirts. SignTech offer a choice of colored thread for both the emblem and the lettering. SignTech is located one mile south of the Sonic fast-food eatery on highway 99 and then west one city block. SignTech sell shirts too. If a shirt is left for embroidery early in the morning, it can be ready by the end of the day.
Dennis asked Andrew Donovan-Shead to talk about the newsletter. Andrew used the research station computer system to display recent editions of the newsletter on the overhead projection system. He explained how to print the newsletter and said that anyone using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 should upgrade to the latest version or use the Firefox web-browser that is a free download; doing so will eliminate the problem of text truncated on the right side of the page.
Dennis introduced Harvey Payne.
Harvey explained that the docent program of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is important because it is the public face of The Nature Conservancy. He said that often visitors go out of their way to telephone the Pawhuska office to say how much they appreciated meeting knowledgeable persons staffing the Visitor’s Center who are polite and enthusiastic.
Ann and Tonda were given special mention by Harvey and applause for their hard work keeping the various facilities running smoothly.
Harvey said that there was no major news, which is a good thing. Next year will be the twentieth anniversary of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
There was an accident at the Preserve that occurred when a utility pole broke that supported a high-line energized to 14,000 Volts, causing the lines to fall on Tyler Bowman who was passing underneath on his ATV. Tyler caught the lines as they fell and was badly burned. Harvey said that Tallgrass Prairie Preserve staff handled the emergency very well. Tyler survived, but lost his left arm and right hand; Harvey said that he has a great attitude and is now equipped with a prosthesis. It is amazing that Tyler wasn’t electrocuted.
Harvey reported that Matt Poole has been hired as an assistant to Bob Hamilton. Matt is a recent graduate from Texas. He lives at the Preserve in the premises vacated by a resignation from the staff of cowboys.
The Preserve was awarded a State Wildlife Grant in support of the Greater Prairie Chicken. Harvey said that these usually involve some restriction that allows an element of hunting, as is the case at the Four Canyon Preserve, however, there are no major restrictions on this money at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
Harvey said that the Preserve is working with the Environmental Section of the Osage Nation program to assist landowners with the implementation of restrictive covenants and land management recommendations. The idea is to export the science-based knowledge developed at the Preserve to other landowners under the aegis of the Osage Nation.
Betty Turner asked Harvey about the sign on the road from the Visitor’s
Center to the Science Research Station, designating it as Jones Family
Drive.
Harvey responded, saying that Jenk Jones Jr. of the Jenkin Lloyd
Jones family have been consistently supportive of the The Nature
Conservancy’s objectives. During the mid to late 1980s when Jenk was a
journalist for his father’s newspaper, The Tulsa Tribune, he led the way
to the creation of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve by writing many articles
supporting the idea when it was deeply unpopular. Jenk, of course, is a
docent. Without the support of the Jones family, the Visitor’s Center wouldn’t exist
as it does today, which is just one of several projects financed in part
by their help. Jenk represents the latest generation of the Lloyd Jones
family all of whom have been active in the Tulsa community and surrounding
area since the 1920s. Harvey felt that the naming of the road is a small
token of appreciation.
To a question about the in-holdings within the boundaries of the Preserve, Harvey explained that the objective of The Nature Conservancy is to be a good neighbor.
Harvey reminded us that Ken Greenwood’s five-part film series Cowboys
and the Tallgrass
is still available on DVD for $75.
Harvey relinquished the floor to Bob Hamilton, Director of Science and Stewardship.
Bob said that the current herd is comprised of 2,600 head on 21,000 acres. Calves are expected to arrive from late March through mid April or May. There are about 500,000 bison in America; the herd at the Preserve is the second largest after that at Yellowstone. There is some concern about the introgression of cattle genes into bison. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is participating in a survey of the bison DNA by collecting tail hairs during roundup. Analysis of the data will determine whether or not it makes sense to purify the herd by culling those animals with higher rates of introgression of cattle DNA. Bob expects to complete the final analysis sometime this spring or summer.
Range management of the Preserve is done with fire through random patch-burning in an effort to simulate the natural conditions that prevailed before the arrival of Europeans. Patch-burning has the effect of moving the bison across the prairie as they follow the burns through the seasons; this interaction between fire and the bison improves the diversity of the landscape with resulting increase in general biodiversity. Approximately 40-percent of the Preserve is burned in Spring, 20-percent in Summer, and 40-percent in Fall. Information gathered by fire-induced rotation of the herd is shared with landowners because there is potential to save money with less need for fencing, and with improved forage for cattle that can reduce the need for supplemental feeding; of course, another benefit is the increased biodiversity.
In 1985, the range was managed for uniformity where 80- to 90-percent of the Flint Hills were burned in spring, producing homogeneity of the landscape. Experiments at the Preserve show that conservation management can be an effective alternative to traditional management practices. The Nature Conservancy owns 60,000 acres in the Flint Hills and has a conservation target of approximately 5,000,000 acres consisting in conservation easements and effecting changes in range management practices by exporting research results from the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
Research at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve consists in refining range management practice to demonstrate a boost in production through season-long grazing, assisted by summer burns that improve forage and cut supplemental feed inputs. Patch-burning also helps to control invasive species of flora, such as Sericea Lespedeza; after burns, the new growth is attractive to cattle giving rise to the possibility of eating a way out of the Sericea Lespedeza problem. Patch burning seems to resonate well with range managers.
Managing the range for uniformity caused the dramatic decline in the once prolific Greater Prairie Chicken, resulting in a significant loss of a popular game bird. Bob Hamilton talked about the Greater Prairie Chicken as a target for restoration and helping neighbors to survey the leks on their property, where male chickens do their courting. Prairie chickens are adapted to the unique conditions of the natural heterogeneous grasslands; patch-burning effects a restoration of the birds’ habitat. A good indicator of the inherent biodiversity of the range is the size of the population of the Greater Prairie Chicken. The variety of habitat needed by the Greater Prairie Chicken encompasses that needed by many other species.
Bob Hamilton relinquished the floor to Chris Walls, J. T. Nickels Preserve Stewardship & Operations Manager, who talked about the reintroduction of species at the Preserve.
The Nickel Preserve has a wide mix of habitats covering an area of 17,000 acres with lots of streams, creeks, and spings. J. T. Nickel formed the preserve out of 14- to 15,000 acres with The Nature Conservancy in 2000. It has an unfragmented core area that is characterized by a diverse mosaic of Ozark forest and savanna, as well as an inherent fire regime. Conservation planning is based on science and a plan is in place to restore stream bottoms from cleared fields.
Threats to the Nickel Preserve come from invasive species, development, exclusion of fire, over grazing, and conversion to pasture. An ecosystem approach to restoration of the Preserve involves pieces, processes, and patterns; animals are pieces of the puzzle, fire is a process, and patterns are the when and where the pieces and processes are in play. Each year about 6- to 8,000 acres are burned. Historical information about fire is being discovered by studying fire scars on trees and sectioning pine stumps.
Restoration of the Preserve woodland is being done by prescribed thinning of the trees and removal of non-typical species and small trees that would normally be killed by fire. Prairie and savanna restoration is being done by returning 1,000 acres of fields to native grasses and forbs, that were once planted with bermuda and fescue grasses; a program is in place to collect native seeds each year and use them in the restoration effort.
Invasive species control at the Nickel Preserve is focused on thistle, Sericea Lespedeza, and Johnson grass.
On 8 March 2005, Rocky Mountain Elk were reintroduced to the Preserve where Plains Elk had been present historically, until they were hunted to extinction. Initial herd size was 15 cows and 5 bulls; the goal of The Nature Conservancy is to create a self-sufficient core population of free ranging elk. Present size of the herd is approximately 50 to 60 animals. There is no boundary fence around the Preserve and one elk was traced as far as Arkansas before it returned.
Ecological monitoring has documented the presence of black bears; the sighting was recorded on 22 July 2007.
Education and outreach has involved boy scouts to build owl and bird boxes and to help maintain the three hiking trails.
After Chris Walls’ presentation, we adjourned for lunch.
After lunch Andrew Donovan-Shead introduced the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Interactive Information Kiosk development team from Holland Hall 6th Grade. Karen Moore, Holland Hall’s 6th Grade teacher of history, explained that the kiosk project is providing the students with a real-world project that is expanding the students skills with computers and research technique. Each member of the team gave a brief summary of their areas of interest. Ryan introduced himself and said that he is researching reptiles. Rosie said that she is studying butterflies and is the artist for the group. Will and Julian are interested in underground life; they are also known as the Chthonic Research Group; Will is researching voles and Julian is working on moles. James said that he is the student computer expert and passed around the kiosk computer for inspection. Andrew invoked the prototype presentation on the lecture room computer, developed by Julian; you can open Julian’s presentation in your web-browser by clicking on this link: Moles.
The kiosk computer can be seen in your web-browser by following this link: Fit-PC.
You can see the kiosk pedestal and touchscreen planned for the Visitor’s Center by opening this link in your web-browser: Touchscreen Pedestal.
Andrew and the kiosk development team relinquished the floor to Professor
Carmen Greenwood, who talked about Life Down Under
the Tallgrass.
In a healthy prairie system, 75- to 80-percent of the biomass is below ground and the soil is a habitat for mites and spiders that live in the interstices, which is to say the surfaces and spaces that make up the structure of the soil. Soil is not homogeneous spatially or temporally. Animal life within the soil provide the services listed here:
Soil mites are the most abundant arthropods in soil. Oribatid mites are long-lived and slow to reproduce. Population composition can be used to determine soil quality. Soil populations change depending on what happens on the surface.
Nearly all soil dwelling animals are invisible to the naked eye. Professor Greenwood displayed a number of eye-catching micrographs showing exotic looking specimens in colorful detail. We were glad that they are too small to be seen because they would be quite frightening to behold enlarged.
After Professor Greenwood’s presentation Anita closed the meeting.
March 10, 2008 was the first day of the spring controlled burns on the
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. It was a beautiful and sunny day with mild
north winds when the headfire was lit in the Mary L
pasture, just
south of the Bison Pens. The burn also included the Colt trap, East Home,
and Roys trap. Here are some pictures of the fire in Roys trap and my
dad’s fire truck.
Here’s the rundown on the number of visitors we had at the prairie in November. Total for the month was 396. Oklahoma led the way, as usual, with 242. The top three states following Oklahoma were Kansas (17), California (11) and Texas (10). Visitors from Malawi and Nicaragua were the first representatives from their countries this year. There were visitors from 9 countries in November.
December’s counts were very low, which is not surprising, since the Visitor’s Center wasn’t open very many days that month. I have a feeling that a good many people who come to the preserve during the months the Visitor’s Center is closed do not sign in. There were only 81 people who signed in. The top states were Oklahoma (20), Washington (9), and California (8). Thirteen states were represented for the month. The 4 visitors from France were our only visitors from a foreign country.
There were a total of 5553 visitors who signed in during 2007. Of those who signed in 5269 were from the United States with North Dakota and Wyoming being the only states not represented during the year. The states with the most visitors were Oklahoma (3238), Texas (255), Kansas (197), California (146), Arkansas (127) and Missouri (121). There were 43 foreign countries represented by 284 people with Germany (63), England (24) and France (20).
As we start a new season at the Visitor’s Center I would like to remind you to request that all guests sign the book. I realize that we can’t force them to do it, but just let them know that we are not going to be sending them anything. It is simply very interesting to us to see where our guests are from. No lassos are needed for this job, just a gentle reminder will be sufficient.
Below-freezing early morning temperatures kept many docents at home on Saturday, March 8, but the small crew who participated on the Prairie Road Crew found that by starting time at 10:00 a.m. it had become a calm sunny day in the 40s, just right for collecting roadside trash. Six volunteers filled fifteen large trash bags, which were donated to the Pawhuska city dump.
Many thanks to John Boxall, Dave Dolcater, Dan Martin, Gerald Schneider, and Dennis Bires, and to Miya McKim of Pawhuska. Miya plans to complete New Docent Training next month and join the docent program.
Because of the weather-reduced crew, the Bison Loop and the road north of Headquarters were not cleared of trash. Docents who wish to stretch their legs during a shift at the Vistors Center are encouraged to take a half hour or so to patrol those areas when business is slow, leaving a partner to mind the store. Before and after a shift are good times too. Even just a supermarket bag of trash removed from the roadside makes a difference. Thanks!
At the recent Docent Reorientation Meeting Bob Hamilton presented a short review of the DNA program currently run by the Texas A&M University. What prompted the research was the fact that every known herd of bison, even the isolated herd on Catalina Island off the coast of California, show signs of some interbreeding with cattle. The question was presented asking how much of our herd at the Tallgrass Prairie show cattle DNA. Why is this of some importance? The test results will be a tool for the long-term conservation of the plains bison, the species of the North American temperate grassland. It is hoped that eventually our herd can be purified with minimal or no detectable cattle DNA.
The objectives of this project are to:
So much for background. The following information gives more technical explanations of the DNA process. Feel free to absorb as much or as little of it as you wish. Hopefully it will give some fundamental details of DNA studies in general.
The bison samples come from hairs in the tail. Forensic studies often include analysis of hairs from the crime scene. A simplistic description of the test procedure is as follows: cleaning the sample, preparing a homogeneous solution of the hair (releases the DNA), centrifuging the solution to separate the DNA from the rest of the sample, using a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to multiply many times the DNA sequence, then sequencing according to chain length by gel electrophoresis. With that knowledge we Docents can run now our own DNA analysis at the Science Building laboratory!
The mtDNA comes only from the female, and is found in great numbers (>1000) in the outer portion of the cell. nDNA comes from the female and the male and is found in the nucleus (center) of the cell, providing only two copies of the nDNA, one from the female and one from the male. Since the nDNA comes from both parents it is unique to one individual bison.
So much for theory. Below is a communiqué from Bob Hamilton giving information about our herd of bison.
…We’ve been yanking tail hair samples from our herd since 2004, and
now have all the animals sampled (we will probably sample the 2008 calves
this fall). The first question we are trying to address is what percentage of our
animals have traces of cattle DNA. Two different aspects of DNA are
analyzed: the mitochondrial DNA and the nuclear DNA. We have the test
results all in on the mitochondrial DNA, and about 5-percent of our bison have
cattle mitochondrial DNA (which is what has been found in other
conservation herds). We have been culling the females that have it (only
passed on by the female). We are still waiting on the nuclear DNA test
results but expect somewhere around 10- to 20-percent may have cattle nuclear
markers. The nuclear DNA test is searching for 14 markers that have been
shown to be linked to cattle, so a bison with a nuclear
hit
could have
from 1 to 14 of those markers. The general rule of thumb is to cull
anything with 2 or more markers. In summary, what we are trying to find
out is what level of cattle introgression we have in all of these study
herds. The individual herd managers will then need to interpret their
results to determine if they want to try to purify their herds. If it is a
reasonable undertaking, we’d like to purify the Tallgrass herd since it is
one of the larger bison conservation herds (second only to
Yellowstone).
Back issues of the Docent Newsletter, to November 2007, can be found in the two green and one blue zip-binders, stored in the Perspex rack by the file cabinet in the office of the Visitor’s Center.
Deadline for submission of articles for inclusion in the newsletter is the 10th of each month. Publication date is on the 15th. All docents, Nature Conservancy staff, university scientists, philosophers, and historians are welcome to submit articles and pictures about the various preserves in Oklahoma, but of course the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in particular.