Fall 2007: Volume 28, Number 4 - Missouri Prairie Foundation

Prairie State Park offersexpansive prairie views,but also importanthabitat for hundredsof plants and animals,including uncommonspecies like the prairiemole cricket, regalfritillary butterfly,northern harrier,greater prairie-chicken,southern prairie skinkand Mead’s milkweed.DNR fileJim Rathert/MDCThe park’s East Drywood Creek is the state’s most outstanding prairie headwatersstream and provides habitat for aquatic prairie species.Prairie State Park is one of the grand gems ofMissouri’s state park system and certainly one ofthe best remaining examples in the country of athriving prairie landscape. Not only has the parkgrown in size and facilities over its 25 years, butit has also become more biologically diverse andnow functions much like presettlement prairie.Nearly 600 plant species have been documentedat the park, and in addition to the introducedbison and elk that roam the park, the area also ishome to greater prairie-chickens, coyotes, deer,bobcats, burrowing crayfish, northern crayfishfrogs, bullsnakes and many other animals. PrairieState Park contains 690 acres of outstandingprairie natural communities, which are designatedMissouri natural areas.In the 1970s, an effort to preserve remainingprairie in Missouri was fostered between theMissouri Prairie Foundation (MPF),The NatureConservancy, the Missouri Department ofConservation and later the Missouri Departmentof Natural Resources. The effort was furtherenergized when wildlife biologist and MPF cofounderDonald M. Christisen advocated for thepreservation of any remaining prairies of any size.According to William D. Blair, Jr., in hisbook Katharine Ordway, The Lady Who Savedthe Prairies, “the Missouri effort was capped in22