Please see this link from our friends at the Driftless Area Land Conservancy (DALC) calling on us to protect the Bloomfield Prairie (BP).

This prairie is owned by Iowa County and is open to the public for a wide variety of outdoor public recreation. Iowa County has opened a planning process for the property, probably caused by the closure of the county nursing home, the centerpiece of the property.

Over 400 acres of the land is prairie with a wild brook trout stream running through it. It has many other amenities. If you bird or hike, you might know this land already. It has great trails and is a haven for grassland birds. With over 100 acres in pasture and row crops, the land and water can also be improved if those acres can be converted to grasslands in a fair and careful process.

This seems like an innocuous planning process that will only lead to improvements for the land and water. One might think that the process probably does not need our attention.

Just to be clear: NOPE. Please never, ever assume that a planning process for public lands will go well. Lots of well intentioned folks will have many other ideas for the property with the possibility of more extensive agriculture or, Heavens to Betsy, sale of some or all of the land.

So let's be positive and active by:

Taking the survey, even if or maybe even especially if you don't live in Iowa County: https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bwQfHaDhA7Qw2ea.

Tourism is an important part of the County's economy. The County Board and other policymakers should know that the Bloomfield Prairie attracts visitors for lots of reasons. I'm guessing and hoping that some of the birders reading this blog have visited the Prairie. If you're one of them, please take that survey. I wandered into the Prairie last summer in search of (you can guess) the brook trout stream. In August that's a bit overgrown for my fishing skills but I was stunned and delighted by the expanse and beauty of the prairie. How, I wondered, have I not found this before.
And monitoring the process. I hope DALC and the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance (us) will help.

Our new name reminds of the area in which we have to protect birds. This planning process is an opportunity to do that.

Take care,

Topf Wells, advocacy committee