M&B News
LDWF Botanist Chris Reid’s Work to Save
Louisiana’s Remaining Coastal Prairie Recognized by Louisiana Wildlife Federation.
The fight to stave off extinction of
Louisiana’s remaining coastal prairie might be
viewed as an uphill battle, at best.
But it’s a fight Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries botanist Chris Reid has
taken on with passion. His work has been recognized by the Louisiana Wildlife Federation
as an important contribution to Louisiana conservation. Chris has been selected to receive
the 2015 Professional Conservationist of the
Year Award for the 52nd Governor’s State
Conservation Awards program, set for April 2
in Baton Rouge.
Prior to the late 1800s, coastal prairie,
found extensively in southwest Louisiana,
amounted to approximately 2.5 million acres.
This once-expansive native grassland is an extension of tall-grass prairies from the eastern
Great Plains. Since that time, almost all
Louisiana coastal prairie land has been plowed
and converted to agriculture. The estimated
amount of coastal prairie remaining on the
landscape today is 5,000-6,000 acres, nearly all
of which is found on private lands.
Despite this drastic reduction in acreage, Reid
is convinced something substantial can still be
done to save Louisiana’s coastal prairie.
Most remaining Louisiana coastal prairie is
found near Lake Charles, where prairie remnants are primarily used for cattle grazing. This
land use may well have prevented the complete loss of this habitat in the state.
These prairie rangelands have never been
plowed but are degraded. Some of the main
prairie grasses have apparently been overgrazed by cattle. Also, invasion of prairies by
trees and shrubs due to lack of adequate pre-
LDWF Botanist, Chris Reid.
scribed burning is a problem.
“We went out to a prairie remnant on a ranch
in southwest Louisiana and it was about the
second or third one that I had gone to,’’ said
Reid, part of the LDWF’s Natural Heritage Program. “And that’s when the light went off. It
dawned on us that there was still a chance to
do something really meaningful to benefit
prairie conservation.’’
Since that revelation in 2012, Reid has
worked tirelessly to restore coastal prairie. He
has cultivated relationships with private
landowners in southwest Louisiana to conserve
prairies found on their property. Chris has had
great success in restoring coastal prairie
through several methods, but primarily
through prescribed burning, a process of planning and applying fire to a predetermined
area to produce desired to benefit prairie
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