Great Plains Projects

Denton Hills Initiative

Our Goals
Promote tallgrass prairie conservation on private lands in a three-county area by working with local landowners on land management techniques such as prescribed burning, grazing, and native plant restoration.
What We’re Doing
We work with landowners across the Denton Hills landscape to restore or improve tallgrass prairie habitats and use the Center as a demonstration site for education and training opportunities.
Green landscape with blue skies

The Denton Hills landscape (in Lancaster, Seward and Saline counties) is a primarily privately owned, intact prairie system that is approaching a tipping point as threats – encroaching cedar trees, highly variable landowner management – contribute to habitat decline. Within the Denton Hills, Spring Creek Prairie ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Center serves as an anchor to one of Nebraska’s largest remaining tallgrass prairie complexes. Spring Creek encompasses 1,010 acres of virgin and restored prairie, and 100 acres of native oak woodlands and riparian areas. 

Preserving the Prairie

Spring Creek Prairie ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Center uses grazing, haying, prescribed fire, rest, herbicide applications, and mechanical removal of unwanted plant species to manage its property. Over the last three years, as a partner with the Tri-County Prescribed Burn Association (TCPBA), we have worked with local landowners to provide access to equipment, training, and technical advice to conduct prescribed burns and other management practices on their own land. All this work has an emphasis on expanding and connecting existing tallgrass prairie environments to create larger, contiguous blocks of habitat. Demand for this type of landowner assistance has increased in recent years due to expanding woody encroachment and prairie fragmentation. Spring Creek is positioned to serve as a demonstration site for landowners, public land managers, and the public, and will provide storage space, equipment, and assistance with maintenance/repairs of TCPBA-owned equipment. 

Encouraging the wise management of tallgrass prairie habitat will have a positive impact on local populations of grassland birds including the Northern Bobwhite, Bobolink, Grasshopper Sparrow, and more. This group of birds – which have been showing steady population declines over the past decades – needs healthy, connected areas of prairie as breeding grounds and migration stopovers. 

If you are a neighbor or landowner interested in learning more or joining the Tri-County Prescribed Burn Association, contact Ed Hubbs at .

Come explore the intact tallgrass landscape of the Denton Hills at Spring Creek Prairie.

Project Team

Ed Hubbs

Habitat and Private Lands Manager

Wyatt Koehler

Senior Habitat Management CoordinatorÂ