In defense of the managers of NWR's and WPA's, most know that prescribed burns and opening up shorelines to the sun with livestock or even mowing machines help create better habitat for breeding waterfowl and a host of native meadow and shallow-marsh birds. Its just that they do not have the time, personnel, and equipment needed, and are hobbled by a mountain of regulations and red tape. And livestock producers are getting hard to find. Another problem is that many of the WPA's are very small. I know of several surrounded by water on three sides and a road on the other that could be safely burned and greatly improved, at least temporarily, by one person with a flip of a Bic. But they remain idle, seemingly forever, with most passers-by having no idea the area was once prairie, including the low grasslands we call wetlands.
What John Madson wrote about the tallgrass prairie ("On the Osage" [1990])is certainly true for the mixedgrass prairie of the Prairie Pothole Region of the US and Canada: "a singular system defined by climate, size, and the interactions of fire and grazing bison. Because those factors are no longer functioning on a balanced whole anywhere in North America, true tallgrass prairie can be considered extinct as a natural functioning ecosystem."
All we have to work with are tiny remnants of the system, but that does not mean we should give up trying to simulate natural conditions as best we can.
