Tallgrass
Prairie
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enlarge
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Artist: Wayne Cooper
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Sponsor: Williams Companies
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Dedication: 10-02-01
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Size: 8' x 5'
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Type: Oil on Canvas
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North staircase, 5th floor, Senate wing
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Originally spanning portions
of 14 states and covering over 142 million acres, the tallgrass
prairie was one of North America's major ecosystems. It
was a complex landscape, harboring a rich diversity of
plants and animals, that was shaped by nature.
Today, less than 10% of the
original tallgrass prairie remains. Most of it has been
converted to farmland. Large, unbroken tracts of tallgrass
prairie only exist now in the Flint Hills of Oklahoma and
Kansas. In 1989, the Nature Conservancy purchased the 29,000
acre Barnard Ranch as the cornerstone of the Tallgrass
Prairie Preserve. The Preserve now consists of 38,600 acres
of land owned or leased by The Nature Conservancy. The
Conservancy's goal is to recreate a functioning tallgrass
prairie ecosystem using controlled burns and bison. The
300 bison reintroduced in 1993 will eventually grow to
a herd of 3,200 animals freely roaming on 32,000 acres
of preserve.
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