PLEASE HELP US EXPAND THE CAYLER PRAIRIE COMPLEX

PLEASE HELP US EXPAND THE CAYLER PRAIRIE COMPLEX!

The Iowa Prairie Network wants to help one of Iowa's best prairies, and we need your help to do it. The IPN is offering a challenge grant to help purchase an addition to the Cayler Prairie complex. This addition gives Iowans a rare opportunity to expand and buffer a high-quality prairie preserve.

Cayler Prairie State Preserve is a 160-acre native prairie located in Dickinson County near the western edge of the Des Moines Lobe. It is used every summer for research by Iowa Lakeside Laboratory students. The prairie has more than 200 species of plants and a variety of animals, including white-tailed jackrabbits, northern harriers, and regal fritillaries. An additional 385 acres of former pasture and cropland adjacent to the prairie were purchased by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in 1998, with initial help from the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation.

The tract of land we want to help buy is next to the Cayler Prairie complex. The Nature Conservancy of Iowa is assisting the Wildlife Bureau of the Iowa DNR with the purchase of this tract. The federally-threatened prairie bush clover (Lespedeza leptostachya) was found on the tract by Paul Christiansen in 1965, and is also found on the Cayler Prairie State Preserve and the 1998 addition. For this reason, the Iowa DNR has received an Endangered Species Recovery grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which will pay for 90% of the purchase. The remaining 10% of the funding ($12,100) is being raised by the Conservancy from private sources, and the Iowa Prairie Network wants to help.

The new tract, which will be owned and managed by the Wildlife Bureau, contains eighty acres. About half of those acres are prairie pasture, which means that good management will help the remnant populations of prairie species already present. The rest of the land is cropland, most or all of which will become a prairie reconstruction.

The new tract has exciting features, including a natural prairie pothole in the cropland and lots of bobolinks and upland sandpipers on the prairie pasture. The Wildlife Bureau intends to use prairie seed from Cayler Prairie, possibly augmented by seed from other nearby prairie remnants, to plant the cropland. That makes this an opportunity to support the creation of a high-quality, local-ecotype prairie reconstruction.

The Iowa Prairie Network will match donations on a two-for-one basis, up to $2,000. That means that if IPN members and supporters come up with $2,000 in donations for this Cayler addition, we will donate $4,000 in matching money from our treasury. In that way, we will collectively donate $6,000 to the Cayler tract.

If you want to help, please send your check to:

IPN

P.O. Box 572

Nevada, Iowa 50201

Please write the check to the IPN, and be sure to write "Cayler Prairie" in the memo line. We are a 501(c)(3) organization so your donation is tax-deductible. Donations will be accepted until Dec. 31, 2002.

Thank you for helping the Cayler Prairie complex, and thank you for helping to provide and protect eighty new public acres of remnant and local-ecotype reconstructed prairie for future Iowans to enjoy!