THIN GREEN LINE Joseph C. Neal (Thin Green Line was originally prepared as a talk to the Washington County Green Party meeting of June 19, 2002, at Agri Park, which like the grasslands at Wilson Springs, features prairie mounds and is part of the former prairies of northwestern Arkansas. The version below was revised on August 21, 2002--JN). My first visit to the old wet prairie fields surrounding Wilson Springs was on May 4, 1982. I am precise about that because on that sunny spring day I recorded natural history information in the fields along Shiloh Drive on a 4 x 6-inch field card issued by Arkansas Audubon Society. I had heard about the spring and the rare fish called Arkansas Darter that had been saved during construction of 71 bypass. Just then at the beginning of work with Doug James on the book Arkansas Birds, I was on a voyage of discovery. Near the spring run, I heard the distinctive song of Bell's Vireo: cheedle cheedle cheedle chee? cheedle cheedle cheedle chew! Hidden in dense bushes along the spring run, the singer was no doubt unaware that Fayetteville-once confined to Prairie Township-was now a City. The singer who had sung for the old prairie grasslands sang now for commuters and 18-wheelers. I can tell you from experience that our City is at best a little vague concerning its prairie heritage. Low conical hummocks, or prairie mounds, distinguished the shrubby fields. On these mounds were masses of brilliant orange-reddish flowers called Indian Paintbrush. Like the first songs of Bell's Vireo newly arrived in Fayetteville from their winter quarters in the south, paintbrush is a sign of spring, of prairie renewal, emblem of Fayetteville's history. Twenty years ago in those fields I found an Eastern Meadowlark nest with 4 eggs, a Red-tailed Hawk nest with a well-grown chick, two more Bell's Vireos, a Yellow-breasted Chat, and many other birds typical of old grasslands-Savannah Sparrows and White-crowned Sparrows. Wilson Springs and its surrounding fields was a green space, but thin and rapidly diminishing along what was becoming I-540. For the next 10 years I had a bird book to finish, a daughter to raise and enjoy, and graduate school. When I went back in the early 1990s, the City had acquired the old prairie. The darter had been saved, but to prepare the surrounding land for development, fields along Shiloh Drive had been scraped clear down to red mineral prairie clays. Buttonbush shrubs that sheltered Bell's Vireo were gone. The mounds with Indian Paintbrush were flattened. Fescue replaced native grasses. For those whose chief evaluation of land is its dollar value per square foot, the old prairie was now much improved. What was in their view wasteland, supporting only hawks and meadowlarks, had been transformed, Rumpelstilskin-like, into a potential goldmine. These folks were then, as now, unaware of Bell's Vireo, chats, and vague at best about anything having to do with the natural values of the land they intended for other purposes. This is termed progress, and is a very respectable point-of-view. A Bradford Pear is as grand as a mature post oak. There is nothing wrong with converting the shallow, tree-lined curves of Clabber Creek into a deep, straight ditch. And why should a small, obscure fish known only to a few specialists stand in the path of offices, restaurants, and Bradford Pear-shaded parking lots? To those who value paintbrush and vireos, it had become non-land, a dreary victim of urbanization. But the situation was about to change. It was during the early 1980s that I became friends with a Chicago native and skilled student of birds, Mike Mlodinow. Eventually, it was Mike's enthusiasm for bird studies that brought me back to the old prairie. For years Mike drove around town in a 1976 Mercury Cougar maintained in running order by the grace a shade tree mechanic who lived next door. But even with that benefit, the Cougar died around Christmas in 1995. Mike cares a great deal more about birds than cars, and when the Cougar was junked, he began to walk and take public transit. Increasingly his birding was focused on the best spots nearest town. One of these was along Dean Solomon Road on the west side of the Wilson Springs property. Each year in late December a group of us gather in order to conduct the Fayetteville Christmas Bird Count. We now have 40 years of such carefully collected field data on birds in the Fayetteville area. Over the years I'd found that one of the best places to find wintering marsh hawks were big open fields divided by Clabber Creek on the eastside of Solomon, not far west of the mounds and birds I'd seen in 1982. I saw the prairie mounds out there and it made sense to me that hawks would be attracted to the small mammal prey in those wet grassy fields. Meanwhile, birders Jim & Teresa Morgan, Lynn Armstrong, Doug James and Rob Doster had begun to other interesting birds. Around the time of the 2000 Christmas Bird Count, the winter fields yielded both species of marsh wrens, plus LeConte's, Swamp, and Lincoln's Sparrows. Mike went back during the spring and summer of 2001. He found Dickcissels, Bell's Vireos, Painted Buntings, and most significantly, a very rare bird, Henslow's Sparrow, which presently is not found during the nesting season anywhere else in Arkansas. He found them out in those big fields giving their simple, two-noted song. It goes like this: chi-lick! chi-lick! While we tend to think about the Ozarks as being mostly hardwood forests, the fact is that in historical times northwest Arkansas had prairie grasslands. We are in an ecotone where the Eastern Deciduous Forest joins the Great Plains. Urban development along US 71-and now I-540--from Greenland in the south to Bentonville in the north-including Fayetteville-occurred on prairies. It was not by accident that Fayetteville's origins were in Prairie Township. Grasslands have been converted to towns, farms, and roads. Indian Paintbrush has been plowed and bulldozed, and prairie mounds flattened. Nationally, 32 million acres of native grasslands have been converted to non-native fescue pastures. In the process, birds that evolved in native grasslands have been in steep decline. Indeed, grassland birds are the ones that have suffered the greatest declines of all North American birds. Despite frequent and well-publicized uproars about cutting hardwood trees, our seasonally wet grasslands and former prairies are the most endangered natural habitats in northwest Arkansas. Disagreements about how hardwood trees should be managed on public forest land, such as the more than one million acres of the Ozark National Forest, will not ultimately change the fact that vast acreages on this forest will continue to be dominated by mature hardwood trees. Almost all of our original vast acreages of prairie grasslands are already gone. Unlike hardwoods in the Ozark NF, almost none of our native grasslands are in public ownership. What can be salvaged is a pitifully small and highly degraded remnant. The grassland surrounding Wilson Springs is one such remnant. An argument that has been raised against preservation involves the fact that Wilson Springs abuts I-540 and is far from pristine. This is all true. The Buffalo National River it is not. But no one who supports preservation has ever claimed that Wilson Springs was pristine. This is a "straw man" raised to deflect serious biological issues. We have always recognized that the 289 acres have been greatly altered over time. The argument for preservation centers, not on pristine, but on the fact that despite so much change, that piece of land has retained much of its native biological diversity. As Mike Mlodinow continued his bird studies during 2001 and 2002, it became evident that the 289 acres supported a surprisingly diverse group of grassland birds, including Henslow's Sparrow. It supported them even though the east side of the property bordering Shiloh Drive--where I found paintbrush and Bell's Vireo in 1982--had been destroyed, ecologically-speaking. It supported them despite the channeling and straightening of Clabber Creek. It's counterproductive to oppose all developers and all developments of land. Building and developing is a perfectly respectable and often useful occupation. However, for many years it has been something of a civic religion, heavily proselytized by City leaders both in and out of government. It has become our Official Religion. This is such a deep-rooted faith that we with different beliefs are viewed as unreasonable people. This is public land that does not belong exclusively to developers. It belongs to you and me and the developers. Our City officials have had a hard time with this. While they have always supported wetland protection for Arkansas Darters, they have not grasped the fact that perennial and seasonal wetlands constitute 85% of the 289 acres. Biologically-speaking, there is more than Arkansas Darters at stake. These are seasonal wetlands under the emergent sedges and grass, invisible to City officials, but not invisible to wetland birds like American Bitterns and small rails like Soras. Hundreds of thousands of public tax dollars have been spent on engineering studies associated with proposed development, but barely a red cent on biological studies of these wetlands. That said, neither birds nor darters need the Corps of Engineers to explain to them where wetlands are and aren't. Like crayfish, they know wetlands when they see them. They were using wetlands long before there was a Fayetteville, much less a proposed tech park and engineers using public tax dollars trying to figure out what to do with all of that water. Our bird studies, and studies of aquatic species like Arkansas Darter, demonstrate that the proposed tech park has not become the non-land that I feared in 1992. Paintbrush may be gone, but there are additional biological mysteries and challenges for those who seek them. The field of restorative ecology could come to the rescue here: native grasslands are currently being restored on the Ozark National Forest near Wedington and at Pea Ridge National Military Park in Benton County. It could happen at Wilson Springs, too. Many folks would welcome the return of Indian Paintbrush to our common heritage. These are public lands that don't require commercial development to achieve their highest purpose. A thin green line holds out for natural values: a thin green line midst clatter and clamour about the supposed importance of converting every square foot of nature into real estate opportunities. Back  |  Home