Refuge Habitat Overview

The wildlife habitat at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge ranges from small patches of relatively undisturbed native prairie, to woodlots and wetlands brought by settlers and farmers. Now, the Arsenal is home to one of the most intense and successful shortgrass prairie restoration programs in the nation. Refuge biologists are working hard to put the prairie back on this landscape. Within the next 10 years, nearly 8,000 acres of former cropfields will be re-seeded with buffalo grass, blue grama and many other species of grasses, wild flowers, and shrubs that are native to Colorado's high plains.

Most of the Arsenal evolved to farm land between 1880 and 1920. After the Army acquired the land during World War II, they converted abandoned crop fields to grasslands using mostly exotic grasses from Europe and Asia. While some wildlife, such as prairie dogs seem to thrive in unnatural habitats of weeds and exotic grasses, many native songbirds cannot thrive without the diversity of the native prairie.

Invasive weeds are perhaps the greatest threat to native habitats throughout the West. Some of the most important habitat work at the refuge involves efforts to control the spread of weeds, and to eradicate new infestations before they can spread and destroy habitat values.

Refuge biologists intensively monitor the habitat to detect weed infestations. They implement an aggressive "integrated pest management" program involving the use of mowing, cultivating, biological control agents, and approved herbicides to keep the weeds at bay.

The refuge will also maintain some of the man-made features, such as lakes, wetlands, and some woodlands that wildlife such as the bald eagle have come to depend on over the last fifty years. Trees on this landscape present a conundrum. They provide roosting sites and potential nesting sites for the bald eagle, and for many colorful and popular songbirds that have invaded Colorado from the East. They also provide perches and nest sites for predators such as the magpie and great-horned owl that are probably much more abundant now than they were before settlement - predators that may impact the native prairie species.

When the prairie restoration program is complete, the northern "half" of the refuge will be a rolling native grassland, with very few trees. In the south, where there are more water features and old homesteads, visitors will see a more manipulated landscape of lakes, marshes, and woodlots interspersed with the grasslands. <<back