Volunteer-Driven Organization to Expand Mounds View Grassland Preserve by 350 acres through the purchase of Hanley Farm and other properties West of Madison

VIROQUA, WI, USA, December 16, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Prairie Enthusiasts (TPE), a volunteer-driven prairie preservation organization, announced today it has been selected to receive an $895,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The grant will help expand the Mounds View Grasslands Preserve through the purchase of the Hanley Farm and other properties in Wisconsin’s Driftless area about 30 miles west of Madison.

The Hanley Farm, which has been in the Hanley family since the 1880s, has one of the most intact, highest quality unplowed prairie remnants in the Upper Midwest.

It is adjacent to the 570-acre Mounds View Grassland Preserve. The resulting more than 900-acre contiguous preserve would become one of the largest prairie recovery projects in the region – and one designated by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as one of the best opportunities for prairie recovery in the Midwest.

Today, less than one percent of prairie and oak savanna remain in Wisconsin. What once was a vast natural ecosystem has been lost over the last 150 years to farming, residential and commercial land development.

"Permanently protecting this property adds to a core of conservation lands in a rapidly developing landscape and provides habitat for species like the rusty patched bumblebee and prairie bush clover, monarch butterflies and other pollinators, and many grassland songbirds," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region Assistant Regional Director for Ecological Services Lori Nordstrom. "We are excited to be part of this effort, joining partners who have worked for decades to protect working farms alongside remnant and reconstructed prairies."

With the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant, The Prairie Enthusiasts has raised over $2.9 million in public and private funds from around 100 individuals and organizations toward a goal of $3 million to fund the purchase, land management endowment and land acquisition and campaign costs.

“We are so grateful to be the recipients of this generous grant as it helps us grow the amount of acreage that can be protected for future generations,” says Debra Behrens, Executive Director of The Prairie Enthusiasts. "With this, we are very close to being able to finalize the acquisition and fund the continued restoration of the Hanley Farm."

The Hanley Farm is one of Wisconsin’s few unplowed prairies, making it especially valuable for its rich biodiversity. Creating a large, contiguous property of conservation land vastly benefits plants and wildlife. This land is so critical to understanding our natural heritage that, in the past decade, dozens of research projects have been conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“The land has been and continues to be something we care deeply about, and we are very aware of our roles not only as owners, but as stewards of the land,” says Matt Underwood, co-owner of the Hanley Farm. “We have watched with interest as The Prairie Enthusiasts have worked to restore the land to what it would have looked like to our grandmother as a young woman.”

The Hanley Farm is home to more than two dozen rare and endangered species of plants, animals, insects, reptiles, and birds. Examples include upland sandpiper, Henslow’s sparrow, Bell’s vireo, red-headed woodpecker, regal fritillary butterfly, red-tailed leafhopper, and pickerel frog. The high diversity of flowering plants provides valuable food and shelter for a wide variety of insects including pollinators.

The same family has owned the Hanley Farm for 140 years and has allowed grass to grow on former cropland for the past 30 years – a great step forward for soil restoration. Grasslands provide critical ecological services, including sequestering carbon, reducing runoff and flooding and improving water quality – benefitting all forms of life.

Grassland and prairie provide extraordinary opportunities for relaxation, recreation, and education. The Hanley Farm would be open to the public for photography, birdwatching, hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hunting, fishing, research and educational outings. Mounds View Grassland preserve is nationally recognized as a birding area.

John Harris
a5 Branding & Digital
+1 708-227-5313
jharris@a5inc.com

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