Management and Conservation

Wildlife conservation is at the heart of the National Wildlife Refuge System. It drives everything on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands and waters managed within the Refuge System, from the purposes for which a national wildlife refuge is established to the recreational activities offered to the resource management tools used. Using conservation best practices, the Refuge System manages Service lands and waters to help ensure the survival of native wildlife species. 

Refuges deploy a host of scientifically sound management tools to address biological challenges. These tools span active water management to wilderness character monitoring, all aimed at ensuring a balanced conservation approach to benefit both wildlife and people. Grassland management in the Wetland Management District includes rotational grazing, rotational haying, prescribed burning, and farming. A combination of the above management tools as well as spraying chemicals and using biological agents are used to control noxious weeds and other exotic species. Haying, grazing, and farming are accomplished cooperatively with approximately 50 private landowners each year.

Management strategies vary depending upon the habitat type, but the main goal for all habitats is to restore native prairie and to create temporally and spatially dynamic habitat conditions that will attract most breeding bird species and other vertebrate fauna characteristic of the mid-1800s era.

Haying

Haying is used to restore and maintain plant communities in the seasonally flooded meadows of the Souris River floodplain. These meadows attract grassland and wetland dependent bird species and other wildlife. Haying or mowing in the meadows sets back woody tree encroachment (mainly willows) and opens up the cattail edge around oxbows and wetlands.

Local cooperators can participate in a hay lottery every 4 years where hay units are assigned using a lottery system. Cooperators are responsible for the terms of the haying contract, which includes the management of noxious weeds through haying/mowing and chemical application. If you are interested in more information about our haying program, please contact us.

Grazing

One strategy used to restore native vegetation includes using a combination of grazing and prescribed fire. An ideal management sequence over 5 years might be BGGGR, where B = burn, G = graze, and R = rest. Grazing is primarily used during May through August or September, via a rotational approach with many relatively small grazing cells per unit and short grazing periods per cell. Stocking rates are adjusted to facilitate re-grazing of smooth brome plants at least once within a grazing period and livestock are moved to the next cell before native plants are re-grazed.

Local cooperators are given permits to graze specific units. If you would like more information about our grazing program or are interested in becoming a cooperator, please contact us.

Invasive Species

A combination of chemical, mechanical, and biological treatments are used to help control invasive species. Chemical treatments vary depending on target species and habitat type. Mechanical treatments include haying, grazing, and prescribed fire. Flea beetles are used for the biological control of leafy spurge. Leafy spurge, Canada thistle, absinth wormwood, and yellow toadflax are the main invasive species of concern in the J. Clark Salyer Wetland Management District Complex. 

Prescribed Fire

North America’s grassland biome is the continent’s most endangered major ecosystem. The decline in extent and quality of North American prairies coincides with decreasing populations of many animal species that depend on them and is among the most challenging conservation issues of this century. In states and provinces of the northern prairie region, for example, native prairie has declined 30% to 99% due mainly to conversion for agriculture. Roughly 222,000 acres of native mixed-grass and tallgrass prairie are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in North Dakota and South Dakota. These areas range from small isolated 40 acre grasslands surrounded by cropland to large contiguous areas like J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge.

Prairies in the northern Great Plains evolved with interacting grazing (by bison, elk, antelope, small mammals, and insects) and fire disturbances (started by lightning and Native Americans). These events, along with drought, shaped grassland plant and animal communities. Woodland and forest, for example, were relatively uncommon before homesteading of North Dakotas vast grasslands. Before this European settlement of North Dakota, fires were common during all months of the year, re-occurring every 5–10 years in our area – this kept grassland mostly free from trees. These natural disturbances ended by the early-1900s, however, when bison were extirpated and most prairie fires were suppressed. 

Today, prescribed fire and prescribed grazing by cattle are used by habitat managers to mimic or recreate natural events by bison and Native Americans that occurred before 1900. Annually, about 25,000-50,000 acres of grassland are periodically burned on refuge lands in the Dakotas and eastern Montana. Fire is used primarily to maintain or improve habitat for wildlife, restore native vegetation, and reduce dead vegetation.