APCORR FIELD REPORT: TRAVELING THE AMERICAN PRAIRIE CORRIDOR (JUNE 2018)

2018 FIELD REPORT

Traveling the

American Prairie Corridor

Yard Art, Texas Style

Driving the Corridor 🌻 Coleman to Albany, TX

June 21-24, 2018, Tina Rust

June 21, 2018 - On Thursday, Tina drove from Dallas out to Abilene, TX with her sister’s family for some summer relaxation at a local campground. She also came to drive the portion of the Corridor that runs along US 283 from Coleman to Albany, TX. Her first stop was the Abilene visitor center where she picked up a lot of maps of the area and talked with the center’s guide about local sights and events over the weekend. She was strongly advised to go see the Fort Griffin "Fandangle" in Albany, a unique weekend performance that the people of Albany put on nightly beneath the summer stars of Texas during the last two weeks of June.

June 22, 2018 - On Friday, she and her sister, Tracee, headed east from Abilene along I-20 to Baird, Texas, then turned north toward Albany to drive the Corridor.  She saw miles and miles of Mesquite trees, cacti, huge ranches with prominent gates, large transmission line and pipeline corridors, and miles of solar farms.

View of Pipeline Corridor

View of Floyd Ranch Gate

Fort Griffin Fandangle Poster

View of Mesquite Along Corridor

They stopped for lunch at the Beehive restaurant for lunch (http:// www.beehivesaloon.com) and heard more about the Fort Griffin Fandangle (http://www.fortgriffinfandangle.org) that was being performed that evening in Fort Griffin, just outside of town. After finishing the fieldwork and driving back to Abilene to pick up the kids, they headed out to Fort Griffin to watch the amazing Fandangle, with over 250 local performers singing, dancing, and performing at this event’s 80th-year celebration.

"That was the biggest...gal-durned rattlesnake ever seen by mortal eyeballs…"  - Performer in Fort Griffin Fandangle

June 23, 2018 - On Saturday, she drove south from Baird toward Coleman.  Along this portion of the Corridor, the countryside was much the same with unending Mesquite trees lining the roadway, interspersed with a few wide open fields, ranch gated entrances, and utility corridors. She drove out to Lake Coleman which is inside the 3-mile-wide corridor northwest of the City of Coleman, and then later into the city here she encountered a vacant former high school with what appeared to be an overgrown community garden in the back. Another, well-tended, garden, “Graham & Jean Bevel Community Garden” was located across the street at the corner of Pecan St and US 283 which was planted in the spring of 2015.

View of Lake Coleman

View of Abandoned Coleman High School

View of Corridor

View of 3B Ranch and Lodging

June 24, 2018 - On Sunday, Tina and her family headed back to Dallas.

OUR FIRST 6 MONTHS

SAVING THE MONARCH

Saving the Monarch

Painting by Sridevi Potu, 2018, Coppell, Texas

Monarch populations have dropped by more than 80 percent since the mid-1990's. The monarch faces multiple threats, including habitat loss due to development and urbanization, loss of overwintering habitat in Mexico, disease, insecticide use for agriculture and mosquito and grasshopper control, and global climate change. The widespread use of herbicides in modern agriculture, particularly those used in conjunction with genetically engineered crops, has also been widely implicated as a major factor in the population decline by reducing milkweed habitat and nectar resources on an enormous scale throughout the migration route.

Map courtesy of Monarch Watch (http://www.flightofthebutterflies.com/epic-migrations/)

As seen in the map above, one of their fall migratory routes travels the American Prairie Corridor (bright blue line), originating in Canada and flowing south into Mexico. American Prairie Corridor is committed to developing a 3-mile-wide corridor of prairie from the Mexican border in Texas to the Canadian Border in North Dakota, opening up a flyway for the Monarchs and all pollinators, free of pesticides and rich in native prairie habitat. Land acquisition and restoration and/or reconstruction of native prairie habitat within the Corridor can not only halt, but reverse, the decline of prairie bird, pollinator, grass, and forb species and create a viable nesting, breeding, and feeding habitat corridor for migratory species for generations to come.

TMR 6/18/18

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You may contact us: 

email: cneel@apcorr.org

phone: (214) 478-4424

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A DAY OF CELEBRATION FOR THE RECOVERY OF AMERICA'S MOST ENDANGERED SPECIES

13th Annual Endangered Species Day offers educational opportunities

[DATELINE] -- On May 18th, 2018, America will celebrate endangered species success stories, including the protection and recovery of the American bald eagle and whooping crane.

Started in 2006 by the United States Congress, Endangered Species Day is a celebration of the nation’s wildlife and wild places. The goal of Endangered Species Day is simple—to educate people about the importance of protecting our rare, threatened, and endangered animal and plant species.

Endangered Species Day provides an opportunity for parks, schools, libraries, museums, zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens, businesses, community groups and conservation organizations to educate the public about the importance of protecting endangered species and highlight the everyday actions that individuals can take to help protect our nation’s wildlife, fish and plants.

"There are many examples across the U.S. Great Plains of species struggling to survive the onslaught of habitat destruction. "Endangered Species Day" is an opportunity for all of us to learn what we can do as individuals to help protect these species," said Tina Rust with American Prairie Corridor. Mammals such as the black-footed ferret and swift fox, birds such as the American peregrine falcon, American bald eagle, whooping crane, and piping plover, and native plants such as the western prairie fringed orchid, small white lady's slipper orchid, and Mead's milkweed are just a few of the species across the Great Plains that are threatened.

But some of these species are starting to recover, and one reason for their success is the passage of the federal Endangered Species Act over 44 years ago. This Act has successfully prevented the extinction of hundreds of species, including the humpback whale, Kirtland’s warbler, and bull trout. Many of our nation’s signature species, such as the Florida panther, Hawaiian monk seal, and Alabama red-bellied turtle, owe their continued existence to the protections of the Act. The resounding success of the Act shows in the fact that just nine animals out of the more than 1,800 species listed as endangered under the Act have been declared extinct.

The Endangered Species Act provides a safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction. “Protecting America’s wildlife today is a legacy we can leave to our children and grandchildren tomorrow," noted Greg Tonian with American Prairie Corridor.

Endangered Species Day will raise awareness about the ongoing threats to endangered species, and the Act’s tremendous success in helping species to recover. It also provides an opportunity to learn more about the wide variety of actions that individuals and groups can take to help protect our nation’s wildlife, including building backyard wildlife habitat, protecting water quality, and supporting local efforts to clean up rivers, parks, and other natural areas.

A project of the Endangered Species Coalition, Endangered Species Day is also supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), along with numerous conservation and education organizations, including the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, National Audubon Society, Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Jane Goodall Institute, North American Association for Environmental Education, National Garden Clubs, Sierra Club, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Science Teachers Association,  San Diego Zoo, Earth Day Network, National Wildlife Federation, and Defenders of Wildlife.

For more information on Endangered Species Day, visit www.endangeredspeciesday.org

TMR 5/17/18

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2018 American Prairie Corridor

Our mailing address is:

4800 Northway Dr, Unit 3C

Dallas, TX 75206

You may contact us: 

email: cneel@apcorr.org

phone: (214) 478-4424

Follow us on Facebook @https://www.facebook.com/americanprairiecorridor
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SIPPING CARBON FROM THE AIR

The potential to sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon through small changes in agricultural practices is huge." Carbon Farming” is the concept of adding carbon back to the soil, which can enhance crop production, reduce the need for chemical fertilizers, and restore the soil's ability to retain carbon. Applying 1/2 inch of compost to the soil in test trials has shown to kick start carbon sequestration at a rate of 1.5 tons per acre per year in grassland habitat. To learn more about Carbon Farming, read this article in the NY Times.

Subscribe to our mailing list!

Email Address 

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2018 American Prairie Corridor

Our mailing address is:

4800 Northway Dr, Unit 3C

Dallas, TX 75206

You may contact us: 

email: cneel@apcorr.org

phone: (214) 478-4424

Follow us on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/americanprairiecorridor

Tweet with us on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/AmPrairieCorr

Link to us on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12092370

YEAR OF THE BIRD

This May marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), one of the oldest wildlife protection laws in the United States, which prohibits the ‘taking’ of any migratory birds.  Taking, under the MBTA is defined as “pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or attempt to pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.” The MBTA protects over 1,000 species of birds and has saved the Wood Duck, Snowy Egret, and Sandhill Crane from extinction, primarily hunted for their feathers.  We are always excited to find that occasional bird nest in a tree, generally in the winter when the leaves did not camouflage it from our view. They are truly marvels of construction. But many of our songbirds have evolved to live in the grassland habitat of the Great Plains, and with no trees, they nest on the ground. Prairie bird species, or ground nesters, are becoming increasingly rare as an Audubon Society report entitled Common Birds in Decline, reports 80 percent population decline for some species since 1967 and up to 50 percent decline for 19 other bird species.  This study is mirrored in a 2009 report State of the Birds issued jointly by the Fish and Wildlife Service and conservation groups that has tracked a 40 percent decline in prairie bird populations over the last 40 years.  The hazards facing prairie bird species are many including colliding with wind turbines or support wires (estimate 440,000 per year), cars and buildings (estimate millions), or predation by feral house cats (seriously estimated in the billions).   

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the most prestigious studier of avian fauna in the world is concerned by another more overriding factor, and as Ken Rosenberg puts it “…the top three threats to birds overall is habitat loss, habitat loss, and habitat loss.” The federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers to take land out of production and let it revert back to grassland, but since 2008, 23 million acres that were in the CRP have been converted back into production, mostly for corn ethanol. The only way to reverse this process of bird population decline, and really, in some instances, decimation, is, I hope as Ken would say, more habitat, more habitat, and more habitat. We know that thousands of seriously dedicated people across the country are saving native prairie remnants, rehabilitating compromised prairie remnants, or replanting new prairies and these actions are better than good. And we applaud each and every one of you. But we are really involved with a race against time and for migratory species saving an acre here and an acre there will just not solve the overriding problem of habitat loss for species that migrate. So, we here at American Prairie Corridor believe a continuous migratory corridor spanning the Great Plains is part of the answer. We are devoting all our time and energy into creating this 1,471 mile long, 3-mile-wide, 2.7 million acre corridor through the Mixed Grass Plains from Mexico to Canada. Please join us and let’s truly devote this year of 2018 to the birds.

CN 4/30/18

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2018 American Prairie Corridor

Our mailing address is:

4800 Northway Dr, Apt 3C

Dallas, TX 75206

You can contact us: 

email: cneel@apcorr.org

phone: (214) 478-4424

Follow us on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/americanprairiecorridor

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