Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

About 15 miles north of Pawhuska, managed by the Nature Conservancy, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve protects nearly 40,000 acres of native grassland that has never been ploughed. Driving or walking through it in spring, when the grasses are just coming up and the wildflowers are thick, is one of the finest landscape experiences in the American interior.

The bison herd is the centrepiece. Nearly 2,500 animals roam freely through the preserve, and you can drive the unpaved roads and encounter them at close range — closer than you should be comfortable with, in some cases, since bison are much faster than they look and entirely indifferent to cars. Beyond the bison, the preserve is excellent for birding, with prairie chickens, dickcissels, and a range of raptors. The visitor centre has good exhibits on the ecology of the tallgrass prairie and why it matters.

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A story
The tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America, stretching from Manitoba to Texas. Less than 4 percent remains — most of it converted to crops in the 19th century. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve north of Pawhuska is the largest protected remnant of this ecosystem in the world, and the bison reintroduced here in 1993 have grown to a herd of nearly 2,500 animals.

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