The Nature Conservancy - NewsFront: Armed and Protected

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Watch a Video: See the Mazama Pocket Gopher in Action
In 2008 biologists trapped and tagged the elusive Mazama pocket gopher in the South Puget Sound’s prairies to learn about their distribution.

The Nature Conservancy in Washington
The Nature Conservancy has helped protect more than 550,000 acres of Washington’s irreplaceable natural lands since 1974, when volunteers first came together to protect bald eagles wintering along the mighty Skagit River

When the echo of artillery fire fades at Fort Lewis, Washington, it is replaced by a sweeter chorus: the chirps and trills of songbirds, including the rare streaked horned lark.

The birds are attracted by the fort’s native prairie habitat, which is increasingly rare in western Washington; the fort’s vast “artillery impact area” is by far the prairie’s best last stand. Ironically, explains ecologist Jeff Foster, who works at the fort, shelling actually helps maintain the native prairies. “During the summer,” he says, “exploding munitions start fires that limit tree invasion and keep Scotch broom [an invasive shrub] at bay.”

This well-preserved prairie is a haven for the streaked horned lark as well as three other species—two rare butterflies and a gopher—that are candidates for listing as endangered species.

The military may seem like an unexpected advocate for threatened species. But if any of the four animals end up on the Endangered Species List, the Army would face serious limits on training maneuvers, explains Foster. “The impact to the military mission would be large,” he says.

That’s one reason officials at Fort Lewis began working with The Nature Conservancy in September 2006 to restore populations of the four animals at several nonmilitary sites in the region. Typically, the military helps groups buy lands adjacent to bases to create habitat buffers. But this project marks the first time the Army has used restoration funds to protect species outside a base without helping to direct a purchase or project.

More than any other federal lands, military bases have become islands of native habitat within seas of development. “Military installations can be some of the last remaining habitat for rare species,” says Hannah Anderson, the Conservancy’s rare-species program lead at Fort Lewis. “This is absolutely true for Fort Lewis.”

—Beth Geiger