Grasslands

This 19-mile trail, between Murphy and Conestoga Trailheads, parallels the original Santa Fe National Historical Trail and allows visitors to experience what life may have been like for early trail travelers. Limestone posts help mark the original trail and interpretive signs explain its history.

Valle Grande is the largest and most prominent valley within Valles Caldera, but it only makes up about 15% of the total land area of the caldera.

Several Santa Fe Trail routes coursed through these grasslands, including the Mountain Route, the Granada-Ft. Union Wagon Road, and the Aubry Cutoff. This vast grassland covers more than 440,000 discontinuous acres in southeastern Colorado. It is composed of a large Carrizo Unit near Springfield, along with a smaller Timpas Unit southwest of La Junta. The grassland's headquarters are located at 27204 Highway 287 in Springfield.

The Grasslands Nature Trail is a 0.75-mile (1.2 km) loop trail with paved access to the grasslands and dunes of the island, and provides benches interspersed throughout the loop. Among the abundant dune grasses and wildflowers of the coastal prairie, hikers may also spot ground squirrels, keeled earless lizards, crested caracaras, and a variety of other wildlife from the trail.

Hiker walking through the grassland under sunset clouds and sky.

An unexpected and often forgotten place becomes a vital part of one park’s bid to restore a critically imperiled landscape

The National Park Service is working to clear the views at two sites vital to the Battle of Second Manassas. Overgrown shrubs and trees have been hiding the sightlines used by Civil War commanders, and park managers are pulling out some unusual tools to address the situation.

The National Park Service will use an adaptive management approach developed with the U.S. Geological Survey to prevent, eradicate, and refine treatment methods for invasive grasses in the Northern Great Plains. The project aims to increase forage quality for bison and other wildlife, increase native plant diversity, improve pollinator habitat, increase climate resiliency, and refine restoration practices that can be broadly shared with other regions.

Though Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is a site devoted to history, preserving its grassland ecology remains integral to the park's mission. A history of lightning ignited wildfires and Native American land-use burning practices preserved the native vegetation. Now the park balances protection of cultural artifacts with a natural fire regime.

Sweeney Ridge was once one of the few remaining places to support endangered Mission blue butterflies on the San Francisco Peninsula. But the quarter-sized, iridescent insects disappeared from the site after a fungal outbreak decimated their host plants in the late 1980’s. Recently, a multi-agency collaborative formed to bring mission blues back to Sweeney Ridge. Thanks to its efforts, Mission blue butterflies are now flying there again for the first time in 35 years!

During 2024 scouting for a large eastern grassland restoration project funded by IRA and BIL, several old growth remnant grasslands were identified in National Capital and Northeast Region parks that were previously unknown. These remnants preserve the genetic integrity of the original grassland flora of the eastern US and are true unexpected treasures that in some cases, were hidden in plain sight.

Climate change is a major driver of bird population declines and is feared to be negatively affecting species abundances in the drought-stricken southwestern United States. We analyzed twelve years of bird monitoring data (2007-2018) from six national parks and monuments on the Colorado Plateau to obtain habitat- and park-specific, breeding-season population trends and understand how they are influenced by important climate variables.

Rivercane is a woody grass native to the southeastern United States, extending up into the National Capital Region. Once a common species, rivercane now only occupies 2% of its former extent. Learn more about the ecology and cultural significance of this once abundant native bamboo.

Many grassland bird species rely on battlefield parks like Harpers Ferry to safely breed and rest during migration. Learn more about a 2022 University of Delaware study that examined which grassland birds are present at Harpers Ferry and the factors that influence their success.

To combat this loss, the National Park Service is embarking on a vast grassland restoration project across the Eastern United States. With funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, the project is underway to protect this important natural resource in thirty-five parks – a major win not just for grasslands but for the numerous species that depend on them.