Black Coulee National Wildlife Refuge

Research, inventory, and monitoring are at the backbone of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With science, we can actively learn and adapt management strategies for the betterment of the wildlife and habitat that make up Refuge lands.

Black Coulee National Wildlife Refuge has premier native prairie along with the wetlands, thus providing critical habitat to prairie species. Concern over encroachment of non-native plant species across the tall to mixed grass prairies started the Native Prairie Adaptive Management Study. Black Coulee has one unit enrolled in this study. Each year belt transects are surveyed for vegetation composition, and once the data is entered and analyzed, management actions (grazing, fire, or rest) for the following year are given. With both monitoring and implementing management actions Service employees are learning the impacts on vegetation composition and if certain management actions do indeed improve native habitats.