By WCLT | Published: September 17, 2009 – 12:52 am

For thousands of years before European settlement, Native Americans harvested the bounty of Puget Sound prairies for food and medicine. They burned the prairies regularly to keep out encroaching shrubs and trees and to encourage proliferation of specific wildflowers and bulbs. After European settlement, the vast majority of prairie lands were converted to farmland and then later to residential and commercial uses. Now, less than 1% of the original prairies on Whidbey Island remain, including a remnant on the Land Trust’s Naas Natural Area Preserve.

Rare prairie species are dependent on periodic fires to control competition and create favorable conditions for seed germination. One of the primary goals of the burn was to remove competing species so that native species can become re-established. The prescribed fire sets the stage for the next step. As part of the Land Trust’s 5-year Stewardship Plan, they made arrangements with five different nurseries to grow more than 40,000 plants (25 different species) that will be planted out this fall. In addition, Land Trust volunteers and staff have been collecting seed which will be sown directly onto the soil in some plots.

This carefully orchestrated prescribed burn at Naas and others that occurred the same day at the AuSable Institute and near Ebey’s Landing, are the first on Whidbey Island in many years. It was the product of an important collaboration between the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, The Nature Conservancy, the AuSable Institute, University of Washington, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wild Mountain Fire and Forestry Inc.

Management activities at the Naas Preserve are funded in part by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

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