Flint Hills - Environment

Environment

The EPA and the World Wildlife Fund have designated the Flint Hills as an ecoregion, distinct from other grasslands of the Great Plains.

Beginning in the mid-19th century, homesteaders replaced the American Indians in the Flint Hills. Due to shallow outcroppings of limestone and chert corn and wheat farming were not practical over much of the area and cattle ranching became the main agricultural activity in the region. Therefore not having been ploughed over and still sparsely developed today, the Flint Hills represent the last expanse of intact tallgrass prairie in the nation and the best opportunity for sustained preservation of this unique habitat that once covered the Great Plains. Most of the plains, such as the Central tall grasslands to the north, have better soil than the Flint Hills and had a richer plant cover but have almost entirely been converted to farmland. Tallgrass prairie is regularly renewed by fire and grazing, which also keep back the growth of trees and shrubs. Prominent grass species are big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans).

Animals of the grassland include the American bison, which once grazed the area in their millions were almost entirely exterminated and have now been reintroduced. The elk that also once roamed the area are now gone.

There are four tallgrass prairie preserves in the Flint Hills, the largest of which, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, (the former Barnard Ranch) in the Osage Hills near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, also boasts a large population of bison and is an important refuge for other wildlife such as the Greater prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido). The other preserves, all located in Kansas, are the 44 km2 Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in northern Chase County, Kansas near Strong City, the Flint Hills Tallgrass Prairie Preserve east of Cassoday, "the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World", and the Konza Prairie which is managed as a tallgrass prairie biological research station by Kansas State University.