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News Brief

June 24, 2025 |  By: Gavin McGough

New conservation areas in Northwest Missouri

Wildflowers

This month, the Missouri Department of Conservation created two new conservation areas here in the state's Northwest. The parcels are located in Harrison County near the tiny town of Hatfield on the Iowa Border. In total, they add almost 250 acres to the Department's portfolio of conserved lands. Supervising Manager for the Department's Northwest Region, Thomas Huffman says the acreage has been farmed in the past, some of it recently.

Huffman says, "This area has been converted to agriculture in the last four or five years."

Now, the Department will try to 'RE-WILD' the prairie, seeding it with the native plants that populated this ecosystem before it was used for farming.

"We're going to reseed that and try it will take three to five years as they put down root systems. But we're going to try convert it that to the original species mix that is on the remnant prairies of Pawnee.", he says. 

A remnant prairie is grassland which has never been farmed, and thus matches the landscape and the species which are truly native to this region. Over the years, the Department hopes to recreate a version of that landscape. One area will be added to the existing Pawnee Prairie Conservation Area. Another will be named the Blazing Prairie Conservation Area. Both are open to the public as with most other conserved lands managed by the state.

According to Huffman, "It's a unique area up there so by all means go visit. They're on our [Department] website. Go hike them, listen to birds, look at all the pretty flowers!"

That website is MDC.MO.gov. Huffman say they are good places to view prairie chickens during their mating season. And at the nearby Dunn Ranch Prairie, managed by the Nature Conservancy, you can see a herd of Bison which was re-introduced to the grassland.