Shortgrass prairie

They would create fuel breaks, a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a brushfire or wildfire.

In the mid-to-late 19th century, the railroads expanded transportation channels and helped to increase settlement, predominantly in rural and small towns.

While more people began to settle in the prairie, large-scale cattle and sheep ranching increased as well and later led to the development of gold, silver, and copper mining communities.

Farmers enrolled in the program agree to abolish environmentally destroyed land from agricultural production and cattle grazing to improve and regrow healthy grass and habitats in exchange for a yearly rental payment.

[6] The shortgrass prairie is a long thin stretch of territory that starts at the top of the country and makes its way to the bottom.

The prairie is home to healthy populations of plains blue grama, a vast array of songbirds and raptors, carpets of buffalo grass and a broad diversity and abundance of wildflowers and butterflies.

Today, the shortgrass prairie has suffered the greatest biological destruction of any major biome in North America.

Through habitat destruction, extermination of native herbivores and predators, proliferation of noxious weeds, and altered fire regimes have negatively been impacted.

In the years of greater precipitation, otherwise dormant wildflowers bloom in the spring, quickly diminishing in the hotter and drier summer months.

Grassland birds, particularly those of the shortgrass prairie, are one North America's fastest declining groups of animals.

Some of birds still inhabiting the shortgrass prairie are the Cassin's sparrow, loggerhead shrike, sandhill crane, scaled quail, Swainson's hawk, burrowing owl, mountain plover and thick-billed longspur.

In addition, the top predators used to be the Great Plains wolf and the grizzly bear, but the coyote has replaced those animals.

Other animals negatively affected by the decline of prairie dogs are the mountain plover, swift fox, ferruginous hawk and the burrowing owl.

More than 85% of prairie is privately owned and used for agriculture, particularly for dry land wheat, irrigated corn, soybeans and alfalfa.

Climate change has less of an effect here than in other areas of Colorado due to the lower elevation, but can still be expected to affect the biome.

[11] The Southern Plains Land Trust (SPLT) creates and protects a network of shortgrass prairie preserves to ensure the future of all native animals and plants in the region.

The human population today is still mainly dependent on agriculture, but fields such as energy exploration and mining are expanding.

Stocking rates and the economy in this region highly depend on the amount of precipitation, range conditions, and other environmental factors.

The Dust Bowl brought a lot of artists and photographers to this area in seek of fame and economic opportunities.