prairie

A federal program kills hundreds of thousands of wild animals a year — like cowbirds in Missouri and prairie dogs in Kansas. Documents obtained by NPR show that many of those animals were killed in places where no damage to livestock was reported.

Conservationists and cattle ranchers are working together to restore grassland for the lesser prairie chicken. The bird used to roam Kansas, but has lost most of its habitat to crop production.

A grant from the Missouri Department of Conservation helped local educators create a grassland prairie for students to learn about conservation at an Oakville elementary school.

While corn and soybeans dominate the Midwestern landscape today, some farmers are integrating strips of native prairie back into their fields. This conservation practice has expanded to more than a dozen states.

In late summer and fall, prairie grasses in Kansas’ Flint Hills can grow as high as eight feet tall. But right now, the grass is still short and wildflowers are the stars of the prairie.

We normally think of trees as being good for the environment. But in parts of the Midwest and Great Plains, they're heating up the earth as woodlands take over grasslands.

A juggernaut unleashed by humans is grinding slowly across the Great Plains, burying some of the most threatened habitat on the planet beneath dense junipers and shrubland.

Prairie landscape used to occupy broad swaths of Kansas, but only a fraction of the original ecosystems remain. A central Kansas photographer hopes his new exhibition will sound the alarm for this ecological emergency. Plus: The Kansas City Latin Jazz Orchestra celebrates 20 years of fostering cross-cultural appreciation.

Kansas City native Philip Heying has made his home outside of Matfield Green, Kansas, for the past 3 years. He says the landscape around the speck of a central Kansas town is under threat.

The documentarian's latest project titled “The American Buffalo” is a two-part, four-hour series that follows the story of this iconic symbol of the West across more than 10,000 years of history.

The tallgrass prairie is an astonishing place to run, with rolling hills, bison herds, wildflowers and birds. We take a sunrise run in the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas.

Prairies used to stretch across all of the central United States. Only a portion of that ecosystem still exists, but there are still some impressive sites in Kansas and Missouri as well as ongoing efforts to restore the native landscape.