Nature Conservancy gets piece of prairie
125 acres of land near Fort Lewis to provide habitat
RAINIER — After a decade of working with private and public landowners to protect and restore South Sound native prairie lands, The Nature Conservancy of Washington has its own piece of prairie to continue that work.
The conservation group last month purchased 125 acres of native prairie next to Fort Lewis west of Rainier, providing a long-term home for several imperiled plants and animals that rely on the rapidly vanishing habitat.
It represents the only privately owned prairie preserve in Western Washington. Only about 3 percent of the historic South Sound prairie lands remain intact after decades of habitat loss to development, farming and invasive species. And only about half of the 3 percent is protected, said Nature Conservancy prairie restorationist Eric Delvin.
“We’re tremendously excited about this purchase,” said Pat Dunn, the Conservancy’s South Puget Sound program manager. “Our goal is to restore the property to high quality, native prairie.”
The first task is to remove the Douglas fir trees and Scotch broom plants that are advancing out into the prairie property from Military Road, Delvin said. Over time, thousands of native grass and flower seeds and seedlings will be planted to add to the native camas, buttercup, Oregon sunshine and other species already there.
On Friday, other work was at hand. Twenty students from the Secondary Options school in Tumwater got a quick lesson in prairie ecology from Delvin; then they set about cleaning 12 bluebird boxes placed on the property two years ago.
The property is part of the Project Bluebird effort, which entails placing dozens of bluebird boxes on public and private prairie land in South Sound to help the western bluebird on the comeback trail.
Bluebird pairs occupied three of the nesting boxes on the property this year, Delvin said.
“The property is very desirable for them,” he said.
The property is already in pretty good shape, well cared for by its previous owners, Thomas and Grace Morgan of Steilacoom. The land had been in the Morgan family for about 50 years. The flat, well-drained soils would have been prime land for development.
“We didn’t want to develop it,” Morgan said. “Selling it to The Nature Conservancy seemed like the right thing to do.”
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Conservancy gets piece of prairie
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