Released November 26, 2008
STILLWATER, Okla. – Scientists with Oklahoma State University’s Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources are overseeing a study seeking to discover just where the bison roam at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, Okla.
“There are approximately 2,600 American bison that roam 24,000 acres on the preserve,” said Sam Fuhlendorf, a professor in the OSU department of natural resource ecology and management who is overseeing the project.
Each year, The Nature Conservancy holds a roundup to check the health of all the bison as well as take down information on each animal. This year, however, was a little different.
While all of the bison still received their annual physicals, seven females between 4 years and 6 years of age were selected to wear radio collars with GPS technology. The radio collars will provide up-to-the-second information about how the bison move around the open range on the prairie.
“We’re interested in how fire and grazing are related,” Fuhlendorf said. “There are a lot of people now who are interested in using fire to make animals move, instead of fencing everything off, and cross fencing, which is expensive and has some negative impacts.”
The lead researcher is Brady Allred, a graduate student at OSU, set to begin his Ph.D. program in January.
“The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is very unique, in that it is one of the few places in North America that we can look at fire and grazing and the ecological interaction between the two,” he said.
The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve began protecting bison in 1989. OSU has played an important role in the research of the bison from the beginning. Previously, OSU would send out scientists to monitor the location of the bison on the property. With this new technology, that process will be much more efficient and beneficial.
“The GPS is going to record (the location of the collared bison) every 10 minutes,” Fuhlendorf said.
The Nature Conservancy burns off a third of the bison pasture every year. The burns are randomly selected and burned in patches, rather than just a single, connected chunk of the property.
Previous research has shown that the bison prefer to graze areas that have been recently burned. However, with the GPS collars, the scientists should be able to gather more in-depth research results.
“The information will tell us how important fire is on this landscape,” Allred said. “Fire influences large grazing mammals. People can (make beneficial) use fire for ranching purposes and objectives.”
While OSU does a significant amount research on the bison on the prairie, related research is also done on livestock, particularly cattle. Bison and cattle are not exactly the same, but their foraging and lifestyle tendencies have many similarities.
“There is interest in a park situation from a conservation standpoint, but it’s beginning to become more and more involved in the ranching industry,” Fuhlendorf said. “We’re finding out how big of an area to burn, how far they will travel from water and how fire can be used to draw livestock out of low areas.”
The research potentially could have a significant financial effect for ranchers. Cattle traditionally like to graze around ponds and creeks, but the preserve study could provide insights on how to draw cattle to areas that are not typically grazed.
No money would have to be wasted trying to bring water up on a hill, said Fuhlendorf.
“You can move cattle around with fire; (this provides) benefits for bio-diversity, which is good all around for the environment,” Allred said.
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Contact: Sean Hubbard, 405-744-4490, sean.hubbard@okstate.edu
