Prairie & Barrens Management
Fire is used by our Wildlife Management team to manage native prairies. When fire is lit by "dry lightening" or by people who do not possess the knowledge of manipulating fire, it can be a powerful and destructive force. Wildfires swept through this area in 1893, 1910, 1920 and 1930. Most of these wildfires are believed to have been set by landowners wanting to renew the valuable wiregrass growing in the marshes. When fire is lit then carefully controlled by a team of experienced and well-trained Wildlife Management staff, it becomes a powerful and useful tool for managing wildlife habitat. Our Sandhill Wildlife Management team is currently taking steps to improve the oak barrens community, sometimes called the oak savanna community. One of our oak barrens projects is located within the Bison Barrens area. While this area may look expansive--at 260 acres--it is really quite small. Beginning in 1996, wildlife staff took steps to double the size of the oak barrens. Most of this expansion took place to the north of the Bison Barrens, and consisted of cutting and removing trees, burning the leftover piles of branches, and planting native prairie grasses grass and wildflowers.
Oak barrens restoration is very time-consuming and costly. However, by creating this open savanna-type habitat, we increase visitor’s chances of seeing the magnificent bison in native habitat - a symbol of our early frontier. Our management efforts also improve range conditions for the bison, provide educational opportunities for school groups and individuals, and provide a home for rare, threatened or endangered wildlife including the Karner blue butterfly.
The end result of our barrens management project will be a 500-acre upland oak barrens attached to the 2,200 acre Gallegher Marsh. We hope that this entire open landscape will attract many habitat-specific wildlife such as sharp-tailed grouse, bobolinks, and other creatures who need large expanses of open landscape, but care little if such open areas are "moist" or "dry". Persistence and time will tell whether our management approach will succeed in putting a little bit of Wisconsin's natural heritage back on the landscape. The federally endangered Karner Blue butterfly and the Dusky Elfin butterfly are both dependent on the wild lupine that blooms in our oak barrens in late May through June. Through a vigorous habitat management program of burning and mowing woody plants, the Wildlife Management team at Sandhill is able to maintain the semi-shade to full sunlight conditions that the wild lupine (and butterflies) prefer. The prairie must be burned periodically to maintain the habitat, an action that may result in the killing of butterflies, eggs or larvae. To get around this dilemma, the Bison Barrens is divided into parcels called burn units. Each unit is burned or mowed on a staggered time schedule once every 3 to 7 years. Under this scheme, only 1 or 2 units are affected yearly, and any butterfly losses within the affected units are quickly recovered through re-colonization from butterflies living in neighboring units.
Scattered here and there throughout the Sandhill Wildlife Area you may see small farm fields once used by farmers prior to the 1930s. Wildlife managers and technicians originally kept these fields planted to corn and buckwheat for wildlife. But, by the early 1970’s managers realized that the practice of maintaining food plots for wildlife wasn’t the best management practice because it un-naturally causes wildlife to depend too much on people for their food supply. Today, trees and shrubs are reclaiming some of these fields. Other fields have been replanted with or reclaimed by native prairie grasses and wildflowers. Seeds from our restored prairies are sometimes collected in the autumn with the help of students from area schools. The seed is then used to establish prairies elsewhere.
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