Description
In the remote northeast corner of Oregon lies the ruggedly beautiful Zumwalt Prairie. A wild expanse of untilled ground covering nearly two hundred square miles, the Zumwalt is almost entirely managed by cattle ranchers. It also is home to one of the most highest concentrations of hawks in North The us, including red tailed, ferruginous, and Swainson’s hawks. Strong and beautiful, these buteo hawks regularly rely on uncultivated, unpeopled prairies. Marcy Houle, a natural world biologist and student, first went to the Zumwalt in 1979 to discover what attracts and sustains the buteos there in such startling abundance. Houle explores the vast prairie on foot and horseback, and by truck, cataloging its hawks, studying its complex ecosystem, and meeting its people. Fueled by her youth, her spirit, her humor—and in part by hernaivet©—she bands birds, outruns a bull, climbs into nests, and pullstogether the fac tious community of ranchers, towns people, andgovernment employees. Her findings, eloquently reported, show that ranchers and grazing and natural world not only can coexist, but in some instances should coexist if we are to save the last of the native prairies. In an epilogue to this new edition, Houle returns to the Zumwalt to have a look at how the prairie is faring two decades later. The American West is undergoing tremendous change and a historic way of living is fighting for survival. But Houle finds reason for hope in the Zumwalt—in the hawks and ranchers that are still there, and also in creative new partnerships. As an example, the Nature Conservancy bought 42 square miles of the grassland in 2000, with a plan to encourage sustainablecattle grazing and let ranchers play a role in the stewardship of the land. This and other strategies are essential to explore, Houle reminds us, if the ranchers and natural world of the Zumwalt are to persist and the prairie to endure.