Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 26 of 26
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Shear Salvation, Julian Smith
Shear Salvation, Julian Smith
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
At the edge of the world, the wind is strong enough to make you stumble, and it never seems to stop. Constant gusts batter the southernmost tip of Argentina, just across the Strait of Magellan from Tierra del Fuego, where sheep graze on gently rolling grasslands as whitecaps race across the South Atlantic. The story of sheep rancher's routine and how the life of the grassland impacts the people around it.
South America (Patagonia [Argentina And Chile]), The Nature Conservancy
South America (Patagonia [Argentina And Chile]), The Nature Conservancy
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
An introduction to the Patagoninan Grasslands in South America. Stretching from the foothills of the Andes in Chile to the Atlantic coast of Argentina, the Patagonian grasslands are a reminder of untamed wilderness and wide-open plains. The region is home to the legendary gauchos, Argentine cowboys known for their skill with horses and their penchant for mate, a brew of stimulating South American herbs served in hollowed-out gourds.
How Man Seized Fire
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
An Australian Aboriginal folklore. Long ago the animals that now live in the bush were men. A tribe returning from a hunt encountered a very old man who told them a story of how man seized fire.
Home Country, Ron Geatz
Home Country, Ron Geatz
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
In northern Australia, a new generation helps to heal their homelands. Standing atop the red cliffs of Fish River Gorge in Australia’s Northern Territory, it’s difficult not to indulge in a fantasy of nature primordial. More than 100 feet below, fish are clearly visible in the crystalline water. Flocks of squawking white cockatoos soar through the riverine forest, and wallabies dart in and out of view.
Australia (Northern Territory), The Nature Conservancy
Australia (Northern Territory), The Nature Conservancy
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Covering more than 247 million acres, an area larger than California, Colorado, and New Mexico combined, Northern Australia is one of the few remaining largescale natural areas left on Earth.
Giant Steppes: Protecting Mongolia's Grasslands In The Face Of A Mining Boom, Joshua Zaffos
Giant Steppes: Protecting Mongolia's Grasslands In The Face Of A Mining Boom, Joshua Zaffos
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Amar Purev, a square-jawed preserve ranger with a no-nonsense demeanor, peers through binoculars from the window of an SUV as it bounces along a double-track path through a green-and-golden sea of hip-high grass. He spots only a few gazelles in the distance, but when the vehicle crests a hill, it halts: fifty yards away, hundreds of gazelles and their calves graze on stipa, or feather grass. Before Purev can open his door, the animals take off, coursing 40 miles per hour across the flat and boundless expanse that reaches to the horizon. This grassy ocean is Mongolia’s Toson Hulstai Nature …
Asia (Mongolia), The Nature Conservancy
Asia (Mongolia), The Nature Conservancy
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Mongolia is a country of vast landscapes and a small population. This article explains Mongolia’s grasslands, and the way of life of the nomadic peoples who sustain them, are threatened by mining, energy, and infrastructure development.
Heartbreak On The Serengeti, Robert Poole
Heartbreak On The Serengeti, Robert Poole
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
To the Maasai it’s the place where the land runs on forever, but beyond the protected core of this iconic landscape, the land is running out.
Laurence Coffelt: Cassoday, 1910-1976, Lawrence P. Klintworth
Laurence Coffelt: Cassoday, 1910-1976, Lawrence P. Klintworth
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Long before Laurence Coffelt, a Kansas farm boy from the Flint Hills, was born, the last of the Longhorn cattle had made their journey north up the old Chisholm Trail. Deep ruts of the historic cattle trails had been cross-fenced with barbed wire and plowed under by the generation in which Coffelt lived, but some Old Timers still lived who remembered the Open Range.
A Tenuous Foothold In The Flint Hills: The Greater Prairie-Chicken, Virginia Winder
A Tenuous Foothold In The Flint Hills: The Greater Prairie-Chicken, Virginia Winder
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
The stars become perceptibly duller while the faintest tinge of gray appears in the eastern sky. An eerie, low, booming sound resonates across the cold prairie hills. More booming voices join in. And more still. The sky lightens, soft gold and pink tones flood the otherwise quiet banks of grass, and a new day’s struggle begins at the leks of Greater Prairie-Chickens.
Sustainable Prairie, Brian Obermeyer
Sustainable Prairie, Brian Obermeyer
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Tallgrass prairie once blanketed approximately 170 million acres of North America, from Texas up into Canada and from Kentucky west into Kansas. Only about 4 percent of this once vast sea of grass remains, making tallgrass prairie the most altered ecosystem on the continent in terms of acres lost.
Land
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Natural history is the heart and soul of the Flint Hills. The terraced landscape created by layers of limestone, flint, and shale; the seasonally changing colors of bluestem, Indian, and switch grasses; the wildlife and the streams and ponds are all evoked by the writers in this section. This is the introduction to the, "Land," section of the Field Journal.
The Tallgrass Prairie At Fort Riley, Brian Obermeyer
The Tallgrass Prairie At Fort Riley, Brian Obermeyer
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Fort Riley – or Camp Center as it was originally named due to its proximity to the geographic center of the US – was first surveyed in 1852 to serve as a military post to protect traders moving along the Oregon-California and Santa Fe trails.
Insects On The Prairie, Valerie Wright
Insects On The Prairie, Valerie Wright
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Insects make up about ninety percent of the animals on earth. They live above and below ground and are found flying at high altitudes or living in water, soil, plant, or animal tissue - literally filling every niche possible for life.
A Hunting And Fishing Legacy At Fort Riley, Alan Hynek
A Hunting And Fishing Legacy At Fort Riley, Alan Hynek
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Balancing the needs of the military mission with natural resources management and the recreational interests of soldiers, families, and civilians is a challenge, but one that Fort Riley has successfully met for decades.
Defining The Flint Hills, Brian Obermeyer
Defining The Flint Hills, Brian Obermeyer
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
The Flint Hills may be the best-loved natural area in Kansas. As the largest intact tallgrass prairie remaining in all of North America, it is also the state’s most ecologically significant landscape. The Flint Hills stretch north to south across east-central Kansas, and even extend on down into Oklahoma (where they are called the Osage Hills). The region’s width is relatively uniform, averaging perhaps 50 miles but reaching 75 miles at the widest.
20,000 Years Of Change: Plants, Animals, And People In The Flint Hills, Rolfe Mandel
20,000 Years Of Change: Plants, Animals, And People In The Flint Hills, Rolfe Mandel
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
In September 1806, explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike ventured into what is now Chase County and observed a rugged, rocky landscape he named the Flint Hills. This article explores the transformation of the area through thousands of years.
Splendor Of The Grass, Verlyn Klinkenborg
Splendor Of The Grass, Verlyn Klinkenborg
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
In the Flint Hills of Kansas, the nation’s last great expanse of tallgrass prairie anchors a world renewed by fire.
Painting The Seasons Of The Flint Hills, Louis Copt
Painting The Seasons Of The Flint Hills, Louis Copt
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
To truly understand the Flint Hills, they must be experienced in every season--not just the eye-numbing green of spring, but the explosion of the summer wildflowers to the red and golden grasses of fall, and the deep purple and mauve shadows of winter.
Managing Kansas Flint Hills Grasslands, Clenton Owensby
Managing Kansas Flint Hills Grasslands, Clenton Owensby
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
The Tallgrass Prairie once encompassed some 150+ million acres in the central Great Plains area. Because of the relatively high rainfall in the region and the grassland dominance, the soils there were among the best in the world for crop production.
Tree Invasion, Randy Rodgers
Tree Invasion, Randy Rodgers
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
“I think that I shall never see . . . A poem lovely as a tree.” These first lines of Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” reflect deeply-held values for generations of Americans. No doubt, I stand among those who place great value on trees. As a boy I climbed them, drew them, and explored kid-sized wilderness wherever I could roam in even an acre of them.
Ranching For The Birds, Jane B. Koger
Ranching For The Birds, Jane B. Koger
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
After 30 years raising cattle in southeastern Chase County, I’ve started telling people that ranching is for the birds. Let me give you some context.
In Concert With The Ecosystem, Edward P. Bass
In Concert With The Ecosystem, Edward P. Bass
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
I first “discovered” the Flint Hills of Kansas in the mid-1980s after working for a period of ten years to develop sustainable rangeland practices for a challenging grassland system located in the dry tropics of northwestern Australia.
Their Road To The Buffalo, Ron Parks
Their Road To The Buffalo, Ron Parks
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
A few miles north and east of the symphony site the well, timbered valleys of the Cottonwood River and Middle and Diamond creeks provided good winter camping sites for the Kanza (or Kaw) Indians. In January and February, 1860, hundreds of Kanzas were encamped in these valleys, the women engaged in the work of tanning and dressing buffalo robes brought in from their autumn and winter hunt on the plains.
What Happened To Pike's Animals, Bob Gress
What Happened To Pike's Animals, Bob Gress
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
In 1806 the Zebulon Pike Expedition passed through what is now Kansas for the purpose of "exploring the internal parts of Louisiana." At that time, all of Kansas was part of the recently acquired Louisiana Purchase of 1803. On Sept. 10, 1806, they were at the divide between the Neosho and the Verdigris rivers and on Sept. 11 camped near Bazaar in Chase County. On Sept. 12, 1806, he was very near the site of this, the 2009 Symphony in the Flint Hills location. Here, he made reference and was since credited with naming the Flint Hills. This article is …
Springs Of The Flint Hills, Rex Buchanan, Bob Swain, Wayne Lebsack
Springs Of The Flint Hills, Rex Buchanan, Bob Swain, Wayne Lebsack
Symphony in the Flint Hills Field Journal
Jack Spring is a prairie oasis. Tucked away in southwestern Chase County, it's only a few miles from the Kansas Turnpike, but a world away in terms of the setting. The spring spills out of dark openings in a limestone bluff, then drops down into a creek choked with bright green watercress. Minnows dart in the water. Leaves rustle in the cottonwoods.