A docent Recognition and Reunion Lunch was held October 25th in the seminar room of the Research Building at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Nancy Irby volunteered to chair the committee on these, and did a superb job of her first event. Attendees arrived at 10:30 for a meet and greet, with a welcoming table in the lobby with name tags and guest register. Nancy had arranged for table decorations on the lobby table and the tables in the seminar room making the area festive for the occasion.
The rest of the morning was a welcoming and recognition session by Harvey Payne, Nancy Irby, and Tawnda Hopper who were at a table in front along with Bob Hamilton and Kay Krebbs. We missed Anita Springer who was recovering from surgery. Harvey welcomed everyone and thanked them for their service at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. He gave a brief update and asked for docents to recall some of their favorite experiences on the Preserve, which led to a number of informative stories and reinforced why so many people love to come to the prairie. Nancy talked about her new role on this committee, and noted that there were lunch bags for everyone who attended, and she had made special buffalo cookies and cookies with a 25 on them to celebrate our 25th anniversary (and they were excellent from personal experience.) Tawnda gave an update on the Visitor’s Center, and expressed her appreciation for what all of us do as docents to provide a wonderful experience to the visitors. She also passed out some recognition gifts from Anita Springer to the following new docents (* denotes docent not in attendance who can pick up their recognition gift at the Visitor Center):
The new docents are a much needed addition to the docent pool to assist with getting daily coverage at the Visitor’s Center. A delicious lunch was catered at noon, and the docents running the Visitor Center for the day joined us for lunch.
The afternoon session began with an update on Tallgrass Prairie Preserve by Bob Hamilton and Tony Brown and some tidbits from a very informative and interactive session are noted below.
Nature’s undertakersfrom their use of carcasses for giving birth to the next generation of the beetle population.
After Bob’s update, we heard committee reports from the various docent committees which are detailed below
Bob Hamilton was next with a hike
for the docents who were interested.
As the bison had already been collected into the north holding pen by the
corrals (except for a few stragglers who came out of hiding a couple of
days later), the docents that wanted to get a closer look gathered at the
corrals for a talk about the roundup process. Male bison are culled from
the herd at 6½ years and female bison at 10½ years, with a few
exceptions of escapees who manage to stay around for another year or so.
One of the docents noticed a bald eagle flying by during the discussion.
Then docents got into their vehicles and drove a ways into the pasture,
and stopped with bison on both sides of the road. People were able to get
out on the road and take some super pictures of the bison which was
greatly appreciated.
The docent appreciation and reunion day was a resounding success for all that attended, and we are excited about the new docent ideas being implemented to make the visitor experience more informative and interesting, along with making the task easier for docents.
From my last October day of docent duty, some early morning pictures and a late afternoon shot of the bison in the retaining pasture awaiting Roundup.
I travel 82 miles from South Tulsa to the Preserve and have discovered a convenient place in Barnsdall to stop for a quick and tasty breakfast.
Driving north on Hwy 11, I recommend the compact and rustic M&M Burgers on your right just as you are turning onto Main Street. Formerly Andy’s, it is signed both ways. You can call in before you get there (918-847-2156) to order a breakfast burrito to go as do many of the customers. I recommend stopping in on first try to check over the menu and see the great short order cook at work. Sit in the diner seating and lay into Morris’ hearty French toast breakfast with your coffee. On a cold morning, it will make you a better docent.
Why is the Nature Conservancy spending money, time, and energy preserving
a portion of the Tallgrass Prairie? The obvious answer is that it is an
important ecosystem that is in danger of disappearing; this is what the
Nature Conservancy does. This answer is good enough for many of us, but
there are people who say So what?
, What difference does it make if it
disappears?
You may remember in my Prairie Watching
article of March
2014 in the Tallgrass Prairie Docent Newsletter, I wrote about visitors
and their stories. I can still recall in vivid detail, the discussion I
had with one visitor who saw no reason to protect and preserve the
tallgrass prairie. He was a relatively well-known Actor who also ranches
in Montana. He thought the Preserve should be for grazing cattle and not
wasted on being preserved.
I am sure that there are many people who
would agree with him. After the encounter with the Prairie Preserve
dissident, I began thinking that I should have a better defense of
conservation and preservation in my head, ready to use at a moment’s
notice. I don’t think I could have changed that particular visitor’s mind,
but perhaps there are others who could be persuaded, or others who don’t
necessarily need to be persuaded, but need to be able to bolster their own
beliefs with good reasons. Here are some reasons.
Earth creation scenarios are found in the writings and wisdom of almost
all cultures. These writings usually give mankind control over the Earth.
But most cultures also add responsibility for the Earth as a part of that
control. This means that as we use the resources of the Earth, we must
protect those resources. I found that this is usually expressed in
cultural writings as taking only what is needed and sharing the
remainder so that all can have a part.
All
includes those who come in the future.
Our cultural heritage may require us to conserve and preserve, but throughout most of human history, use of the land for production has taken priority. Thus, natural ecosystems such as the tallgrass prairie have declined or disappeared. We need to find a balance so that we have the resources we need without sacrificing ecosystems entirely. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is a significant attempt to do just that.
We all appreciate and enjoy the inherent beauty of the Earth. As seen from space, the Earth is a blue jewel. As seen from a mountaintop or an airplane, the Earth has many spectacular landscapes and seascapes. As seen from our normal vantage point on the ground, the Earth has animals and plants that exhibit beautiful colors and shapes. As seen with magnification, the Earth shows beauty in its fine detail. But the Earth is not just visually beautiful, it is also beautiful in the intricate ways that it works. The Earth is an incredible set of chemical and physical actions. The result of those actions over time is the Earth that we see and enjoy. Grand Canyon is a good example of a beautiful feature created by Earth processes. It was created by thousands of years of erosion exposing rock layers (that were created through millions of years of sedimentation).
My life experiences have taught me that erosion is a destructive process, washing away needed soil. But it is the action that shapes most of the Earth’s landscapes, including the tallgrass prairie’s rolling hills. When we protect the Earth and its ecosystems such as the tallgrass prairie, we preserve that beauty, and it enhances our lives. Using the Earth’s resources does not have to result in destruction. For much of my career, I worked in ensuring that coal mining did not cause pollution and ruin of the land being mined. I can point out some areas where coal mining improved lands that had been almost destroyed by farming and industrial practices, turning that land into lush prairies and forests. I know of several parks that were created by successful coal mining and reclamation.
Throughout our history, we have found and used resources from the Earth that were necessary for our existence and resources that have allowed the development of the world we live in and enjoy today. When we develop resources, we often diminish the Earth in some places and enhance it in others. For example, mining for materials or energy is often destructive, but those materials and energy can be used to enhance the Earth somewhere else. In the living world, we have found resources that have allowed us to have food, shelter, and protection. And we have often found chemicals in the natural world (especially in the living world) that are now essential for life — antibiotics and other medicines. If we allow ecosystems to be used up and destroyed, finding new resources will be difficult if not impossible in the future. The prairie is a wonderfully diverse ecosystem consisting of hundreds of species of living creatures. Some of those species exist only in prairies, and if the prairies disappear, these species disappear also. If the prairie ceases to exist, we may lose resources that we will need.
An ecosystem such as the tallgrass prairie is a collection of plants and animals and other living species that exist in codependent relationships. A natural food chain consists of producers (plants), consumers at several levels (usually animals), and decomposers (usually fungi). If any link in that chain is threatened, the entire chain is threatened. This simple food chain relationship is broadened in an ecosystem into an interwoven web where many food chains exist alongside each other. These have evolved over the history of life on the Earth to be the best collection of species and food chains for a particular area, fitting its physical limitations. Thus, if an ecosystem is threatened, many evolutionary lines may come to an end. This means that the ability of the natural world to adapt to changing conditions is limited. When the tallgrass prairie began to disappear, the world needed food — food that was produced by agriculture. Human populations had increased to the point that the hunter-gatherer societies could no longer support themselves. Agriculture was invented to supplement the production of food. The tallgrass prairies were perfect lands for agriculture. They had good soils and could be cleared for cropping easier than forests. They also had a rainfall regime that would support agriculture. So the tallgrass prairies began to be converted into farms. Farms that were needed for human survival. This is understandable, but now the tallgrass prairies exist only in isolated spots. The only large plots of tallgrass prairie are in Osage County, Oklahoma, and the Flint Hills of Kansas. If we do not protect these plots, the prairies evolutionary knowledge will be lost.
Use of the Earth’s resources is necessary, but we must balance that use with conservation and preservation. We need food and shelter, but we also need to live as our cultures dictate, enhance our lives with beauty, and improve our conditions with science to ensure that human existence is more than just a hunt for food and struggle for survival. The Nature Conservancy’s work is a significant move in that direction, and we have the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to enjoy, learn from, and protect the grand scheme of nature.
There is an often repeated saying, and most who use it claim that it comes
from The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations: The Great Binding Law.
In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh
generation… even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a
pine.
In all of your deliberations in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not over your shoulder behind you the warnings of the nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law, which is just and right.
Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground — the unborn of the future.
In mid-October, another desire was met during the day as a docent at Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. We were able to be there during a day of rain. It is interesting to see different aspects of the prairie, especially to see how the bison respond. An interesting sidelight is that we often learn things that we didn’t observe while at the prairie, rather they are seen when looking at our photographs of the day. This day was no exception, and the bison were soaking wet from the rain. As you can see in the picture, there are cockleburs all over the head of the bison, which we didn’t see when we took the picture. The rain matted down the fur so that they easily to see once you have the picture. You have probably heard about the role of the bison in see dispersal throughout the prairie, and this is one highly visible example of seeds hitching a ride on the bison. While we saw cattle standing facing away from the direction of the rain earlier in the morning, the bison were grazing and carrying on their normal activities without regard to the weather. Another animal that appeared to be unaffected by the rain were visitors, since we had the normal number of people showing up at the Visitor’s Center for the day.
The month of September had 464 visitors with 427 from 32 states. Oklahoma was represented by 263 visitors followed by California (21), Kansas (19) and Arkansas (17). There were 27 visitors from 12 foreign countries.
Keep up the good work of getting as many visitors as possible to sign the guest registry. We seem to be having a pretty good year, as far as number of visitors is concerned. The numbers will probably begin to drop now that the weather is cooler and schools are in session. Hopefully the weather will be good until our closing date in mid-December.
The coverage percentage year-to-date improved during October. A big thanks to the docents that went the extra mile by serving more than once during October: Bill Alexander, Kathy Alexander, Barbara Bates, Kip Cowan, Karen Cruce, Jim Holland, and Pat Jaynes. Help from each docent is especially appreciated as we are closing out this year. We have an exciting new plan for new docents for the coming year. Everyone is encouraged to recruit friends and help advertise the docent program so that we can rebuild our docent pool for next 2015 and improve the docent coverage of the Visitor’s Center.
Here we provide some links to other places worth visiting.
Here is the latitude and longitude of the Visitor’s Center that you can give to visitors for entry into their GPS navigation device.
Some printed back issues of the Docent Newsletter, to February 2009, can be found in the two green and one blue-black zip-binders, stored in the Perspex rack by the file cabinet in the office of the Visitor’s Center.
All back issues are available electronically via the links shown below. All newsletters prior to December 2007 are available in Portable Document Format (PDF), which means that you will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read these files. All newsletters from December 2007 onwards are in HTML format that is easily read using your web-browser.
2014—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2014
2013—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2013
2012—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2012
2011—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2011
2010—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2010
2009—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2009
2008—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2008
2007—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2007
2006—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2006
2005—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2005
2004—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2004
2003—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2003
2002—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2002
2001—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2001
2000—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—2000
1999—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—1999
1998—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—1998
1997—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—1997
1996—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—1996
1995—January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December—1995
This persistent index of selected topics should make finding articles of interest easier. The list will grow as I move further into the past and it will grow as I add interesting topics from each new newsletter. Iris McPherson lent me the paper copies of the newsletter from the very early years of the docent program; I ran them through a scanner equipped with a document feeder, saving them as PDF files, then added them to Back Issues section above. Let me know of any dead links that you discover. Also, please lend me any paper copies of the newsletter that are missing so that I can scan and add them to the list of back issues.
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.