The Great plains

The Great Plains

  There are three different types of prairie that make up the great plains. On the eastern side there is the tall grass prairie with grass that can grow to over 6 feet high. This type of prairie is the most endangered with only about 2% of it unplowed. The mixed grass prairie is in the middle of the great plains and is made up of both tall and short grass. Much of this has been last to farming. The short grass prairie is on the far western edge of the great plains up along the front range of the rocky mountains.  It is in the best shape of the three types of prairie because parts of it are too dry the plow. The prairie is not just made up of grass but rather it is made up of several hundred different types of plants many of which are wild flowers. To day the two biggest threats to the prairie are plowing for farm land, and woody plants like cedar that are taking over the remaining prairie due to suppression of  natural prairie fires and the extermination of the bison in the wild on the great plains.

   In presettlement times there where over 20 million bison on the great plains. There where large elk herds over all of the great plains. There where pronghorn antelope over much of it. There where prairie dog towns  with over a million prairie dogs in one town as well as swift fox and barrowing owls that also lived in the prairie dog towns . There where also predators like black bears and grizzly bears and cougars as well  as large packs of wolfs over much of the great plains.

   There where prairie chickens and either upland birds as well as hawks and eagles living over much of the prairie.  The where also a many different species of snake, turtles, lizards and amphibians living on the prairie.  today many of these animals are either gone from the prairie or have declined rapidly in number do to habitat lose or over hunting in early settlement times. 

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