Dan Carter
@prairiebotanist.com
Ecologist of Midwestern fire-dependent ecosystems & volunteer land steward @ Mukwonago River Oak Barrens. Opinions mine. Among them is the need to stop viewing grasslands, savannas, & woodlands through a productivist lens. Ban AI. He/Him
You mean to tell me that bird friendly certified consumer products aren't cutting it?
If it seems like there are fewer #birds around, it's not your imagination.
In Episode 7 of Sounds Wild, Jeff Walters from the American Ornithological Society talks about the 2025 State of the Birds report and what can be done about our declining bird population ➡️ https://bit.ly/3Kz9rGA
In Episode 7 of Sounds Wild, Jeff Walters from the American Ornithological Society talks about the 2025 State of the Birds report and what can be done about our declining bird population ➡️ https://bit.ly/3Kz9rGA
November 14, 2025 at 3:02 AM
You mean to tell me that bird friendly certified consumer products aren't cutting it?
So they are getting nothing of substance. The vote on ACA subsidies is theater. We all know it won't pass, and that people will suffer. The calculus is that GOP members will be forced to vote no, but that's not going make any difference in peoples' lives, let alone elections. Weak. Lame. Shameful.
November 10, 2025 at 12:33 AM
So they are getting nothing of substance. The vote on ACA subsidies is theater. We all know it won't pass, and that people will suffer. The calculus is that GOP members will be forced to vote no, but that's not going make any difference in peoples' lives, let alone elections. Weak. Lame. Shameful.
And this is the best prairie research I've seen in a few years. This is exactly how to investigate fire effects, because not all fires are equal. Annual fires are more variable in their effects and generally less intense than less frequent fires. #prairie onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
Fire Frequency Driven Increases in Burn Heterogeneity Promote Microbial Beta Diversity: A Test of the Pyrodiversity‐Biodiversity Hypothesis
Fire is a common ecological disturbance that structures terrestrial ecosystems and biological communities. The ability of fires to contribute to ecosystem heterogeneity has been termed pyrodiversity ....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:29 PM
And this is the best prairie research I've seen in a few years. This is exactly how to investigate fire effects, because not all fires are equal. Annual fires are more variable in their effects and generally less intense than less frequent fires. #prairie onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
More evidence dispelling the seed bank myth that falsely leads practioners to believe that it's an insurance policy against distruptive disturbances to old-growth communities--disturbances that often deliberately prescribed. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
Seed rain and seed banks cannot supply missing diversity to the aboveground flora in reconstructed prairies
Seed-based restoration is a viable method for alleviating the loss of tallgrass prairies by creating new assemblages of prairie flora. Despite using diverse inputs of native seeds, restoration effort...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:03 PM
More evidence dispelling the seed bank myth that falsely leads practioners to believe that it's an insurance policy against distruptive disturbances to old-growth communities--disturbances that often deliberately prescribed. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
From where I stand, beef and dairy production (all or mostly on grass) has basically become the big swinging 🍆 of grassland conservation. There's *almost* no space left that matters for those of us that question it.
@theswinerepublic.bsky.social, "there is abundant evidence that livestock raised in pastoral systems can be done in an environmentally benign way, at least compared to corn and soy production"
open.substack.com/pub/riverrac...
One point not made in this piece is the billionaires ruin everything
Eating a hamburger used to be a pleasure enjoyed by working people everywhere
Now even that has been fucked up by rich assholes
One point not made in this piece is the billionaires ruin everything
Eating a hamburger used to be a pleasure enjoyed by working people everywhere
Now even that has been fucked up by rich assholes
November 7, 2025 at 3:14 AM
From where I stand, beef and dairy production (all or mostly on grass) has basically become the big swinging 🍆 of grassland conservation. There's *almost* no space left that matters for those of us that question it.
Reposted by Dan Carter
I don’t know if people realize that farmers are still receiving crop insurance subsidies, commodity payments, some conservation money, and access to loans & disaster payments, but everyone should know this and act accordingly.
Agricultural exceptionalism is alive and well in Amurika still.
Agricultural exceptionalism is alive and well in Amurika still.
Q: A federal judge ruled that the administration has to fully fund SNAP. DOJ said they're gonna appeal. What's your message to folks as we're headed to Thanksgiving?
TRUMP: *looks at JD Vance* you wanna gowithater
TRUMP: *looks at JD Vance* you wanna gowithater
November 7, 2025 at 1:19 AM
I don’t know if people realize that farmers are still receiving crop insurance subsidies, commodity payments, some conservation money, and access to loans & disaster payments, but everyone should know this and act accordingly.
Agricultural exceptionalism is alive and well in Amurika still.
Agricultural exceptionalism is alive and well in Amurika still.
Herbicide that breaks down to PFAS may be coming to millions of acres surrounding your water supply.
The EPA has proposed approving the dangerously persistent pesticide epyrifenacil on canola, corn, soybean and wheat.
Epyrifenacil is yet another forever chemical, and this marks the fifth proposed approval of a PFAS pesticide since Trump took office.
Read on ➡️ bit.ly/49z9TyX
Epyrifenacil is yet another forever chemical, and this marks the fifth proposed approval of a PFAS pesticide since Trump took office.
Read on ➡️ bit.ly/49z9TyX
November 5, 2025 at 3:12 AM
Herbicide that breaks down to PFAS may be coming to millions of acres surrounding your water supply.
Very small burns, but if we remove buckthorn (glossy and common here) and there is enough fuel to burn in fall, we do, and then we augmentively seed in late fall with species that were likely once present but extirpated by fire exclusion / shade / litter / past grazing / etc.
November 5, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Very small burns, but if we remove buckthorn (glossy and common here) and there is enough fuel to burn in fall, we do, and then we augmentively seed in late fall with species that were likely once present but extirpated by fire exclusion / shade / litter / past grazing / etc.
My happy place these days. Fall colors and textures. Home to many beings. #MukwonagoRiverOakBarenns #ThePrairieEnthusiasts #Savanna #Prairie
October 31, 2025 at 12:30 AM
My happy place these days. Fall colors and textures. Home to many beings. #MukwonagoRiverOakBarenns #ThePrairieEnthusiasts #Savanna #Prairie
Last Friday during a volunteer work party at the Mukwonago River Oak Barrens we found this blue spotted salamander in a piece of partially burried rotten wood. We were physically pulling invading glossy buckthorn. ...another reason why I favor slower approaches to big machines with grindy bits.
October 28, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Last Friday during a volunteer work party at the Mukwonago River Oak Barrens we found this blue spotted salamander in a piece of partially burried rotten wood. We were physically pulling invading glossy buckthorn. ...another reason why I favor slower approaches to big machines with grindy bits.
The first hard freeze was last night. We burned some sedge meadow today.
October 24, 2025 at 10:44 PM
The first hard freeze was last night. We burned some sedge meadow today.
More greenwashing. Cattle have NO business on a savanna preserve in SE Iowa. #prairie nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...
Ranchers are using ‘virtual fencing’ to move their cattle — and help save prairies
Virtual fencing uses GPS collars, sounds and electrical cues to move cattle across a landscape. Along with saving ranchers time, researchers say this new technology can help protect, and create, wildl...
nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com
October 22, 2025 at 1:13 PM
More greenwashing. Cattle have NO business on a savanna preserve in SE Iowa. #prairie nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...
Reposted by Dan Carter
Photos coming out of Western AK are devastating.
Hardest hit are indigenous villages off road system, many miles by air from supplies. Most built on river deltas w/ no high ground to which to escape.
Cuts to NASA/NOAA mean worse weather data. Cuts to EPA mean no grants for erosion control. Etc.
Hardest hit are indigenous villages off road system, many miles by air from supplies. Most built on river deltas w/ no high ground to which to escape.
Cuts to NASA/NOAA mean worse weather data. Cuts to EPA mean no grants for erosion control. Etc.
These are mostly indigenous communities in Alaska that have been slammed by the storm.
The local manager of a small airline fleet says he is the only one doing evacuations right now!
Defund FEMA and people are abandoned. Defund public media and no-one knows.
FYI, today is Indigenous Peoples Day.
The local manager of a small airline fleet says he is the only one doing evacuations right now!
Defund FEMA and people are abandoned. Defund public media and no-one knows.
FYI, today is Indigenous Peoples Day.
October 13, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Photos coming out of Western AK are devastating.
Hardest hit are indigenous villages off road system, many miles by air from supplies. Most built on river deltas w/ no high ground to which to escape.
Cuts to NASA/NOAA mean worse weather data. Cuts to EPA mean no grants for erosion control. Etc.
Hardest hit are indigenous villages off road system, many miles by air from supplies. Most built on river deltas w/ no high ground to which to escape.
Cuts to NASA/NOAA mean worse weather data. Cuts to EPA mean no grants for erosion control. Etc.
This is the kind of greenwashing that people literally eat up.
For 20 years The Nature Conservancy’s Zumwalt Prairie has been billed as a model for “sustainable grazing.”
I walked in expecting a conservation success story.
What I found looked a lot more like a feedlot in waiting. 🧵
I walked in expecting a conservation success story.
What I found looked a lot more like a feedlot in waiting. 🧵
October 4, 2025 at 10:35 PM
This is the kind of greenwashing that people literally eat up.
My native state simply sucks. It’s run by cowards and sell-outs on one hand and sell-outs and bigots on the other.
State panel revokes Des Moines superintendent’s license following his arrest by federal immigration officers
State panel revokes Des Moines superintendent's license following Friday arrest
A state educational licensing board has revoked the license of Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts following his arrest by federal immigration officers last week.
www.thegazette.com
September 29, 2025 at 11:09 PM
My native state simply sucks. It’s run by cowards and sell-outs on one hand and sell-outs and bigots on the other.
Reposted by Dan Carter
“How could he amount to anything if he did not use loaded dice? How has he used loaded dice with you? The laws that say he can fire anybody who stands up for the rights of workers—those are loaded dice. The policemen who protect his property rights but not your human rights—those are loaded dice."
September 23, 2025 at 4:24 PM
“How could he amount to anything if he did not use loaded dice? How has he used loaded dice with you? The laws that say he can fire anybody who stands up for the rights of workers—those are loaded dice. The policemen who protect his property rights but not your human rights—those are loaded dice."
Ordered Symphyotrichum ericoides. Received mix of S. erioides and S. pilosum. Booooo. It's a nursury that produces excellent plants that I've had good experience with, so we'll see what they say. #nativeplants
September 25, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Ordered Symphyotrichum ericoides. Received mix of S. erioides and S. pilosum. Booooo. It's a nursury that produces excellent plants that I've had good experience with, so we'll see what they say. #nativeplants
At least the escalator did not comply. ...unlike Congress, university presidents and admins, MSM, corporate executives....
Turns out, you can walk on the escalator. Who knew.
September 23, 2025 at 9:59 PM
At least the escalator did not comply. ...unlike Congress, university presidents and admins, MSM, corporate executives....
A quick comment on #climate #resilient #landscapes. The #Driftless Area of Wisconsin is considered have some inbuilt resilience owing to its varied aspects, slopes, and soils. Perhaps as it warms more xerophytic vegetation (prairie, oak savanna, oak woods) on S and SW aspects can expand. 1/4
September 18, 2025 at 11:54 PM
A quick comment on #climate #resilient #landscapes. The #Driftless Area of Wisconsin is considered have some inbuilt resilience owing to its varied aspects, slopes, and soils. Perhaps as it warms more xerophytic vegetation (prairie, oak savanna, oak woods) on S and SW aspects can expand. 1/4
Our words are more powerful than our firearms. That's precisely why they exalt guns and come for our speech. Without speech there can be no coordinated defense of freedom by any means.
September 18, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Our words are more powerful than our firearms. That's precisely why they exalt guns and come for our speech. Without speech there can be no coordinated defense of freedom by any means.
BAD photos, but first time for me coming across Bartonia virginica, here in moist, sandy area under white oak...more specifically in a little clearing among royal fern, huckleberry, velvet-leaf blueberry, a bristly dewberry. Not a common thing in SE WI.
September 17, 2025 at 11:15 PM
BAD photos, but first time for me coming across Bartonia virginica, here in moist, sandy area under white oak...more specifically in a little clearing among royal fern, huckleberry, velvet-leaf blueberry, a bristly dewberry. Not a common thing in SE WI.
I wonder who made these galls on Symphyotrichum ericoides? #nativeplants #prairie
September 1, 2025 at 11:50 AM
I wonder who made these galls on Symphyotrichum ericoides? #nativeplants #prairie