One of the newest additions to the Missouri Natural Area Program offers an unequaled opportunity to preserve a type of landscape that once sustained prairie chickens, bison and other prairie species in northern Missouri.
The Missouri Conservation Commission designated 475-acre Pawnee Prairie Conservation Area near Bethany as a natural area in November 2004.
The area is a rare remnant of the tallgrass prairie that covered millions of acres of northern Missouri in pre-pioneer days.
Karen Kramer, natural areas coordinator for the Missouri Department of Conservation, said the area was unique in northern Missouri due to its size.
"This is a long way from being one of the state's largest conservation areas," Kramer said. "But it's huge compared to most remaining prairie areas in north Missouri."
Prairie remnants are rare today because they grew on some of the richest soils on earth.
The vast expanses of wildflowers, bluestem and other prairie grasses that once dominated northwest Missouri were among the first places to be settled.
Pioneers plowed up sod that had covered the ground since the last ice age and planted row crops in its place.
Today, less than one percent of the original prairie acreage remains.
The Conservation Department acquired Pawnee Prairie CA in 1997.
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