Monthly Speaker – October 2023

Restoration of an Extinct Eastern Grassland

By Douglas Gill, PhD, Professor emeritus

Thursday, October 12^th at 7 pm

Professor Gill will be speaking via Zoom

From College Park, Maryland

You may join us at Temple Beth Hatfiloh

201 8^th Ave SE    Olympia

Or watch from home

The habitat in greatest peril both world-wide and in the United States is native prairie, i.e., warm season grasslands (Vickery and Dunwiddie, 1997). Efforts to restore such lost habitats are new, exciting, but scarce.  In 1999, a block of 227 acres of agricultural land at Chino Farms in Chestertown, MD was converted from corn and soybean row-crop production to native warm season grasses as part of the USDA Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the State of MD Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Comprehensive ecological studies have been conducted on the native Grasslands at Chino Farms for 21 years.

The focus has been on:

1. the growth performance of the planted native warm season grasses and alien species under alternative, experimental management protocols, especially prescribed prairie fires, for effective grassland establishment;
2. the population response of grassland bird species of conservation concern on the East Coast; Grasshopper Sparrows quickly became our flagship species.

IMPORTANT:  You can participate in this program in one of two ways:  live or online.

Live – Join us in person at Temple Beth Hatfiloh at the address above starting at 7 pm.

Online – Register for the Zoom option at the link below and log on at 7 pm.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtcuqorDwrGN3khOFl-31W9e8Hw-8hipq-

Photo credit: Grasshopper Sparrow, by J.A. Spendelow.