List of protected grasslands of North America

{{short description|Prairies generally within the Interior Plains}}

{{Expand list|date=June 2021}}

{{use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}

The protected grasslands of North America consist of prairies, with a dominant vegetation type of herbaceous plants like grasses, sedges, and other prairie plants, rather than woody vegetation like trees. Grasslands were generally dominant within the Interior Plains of central North America but was also present elsewhere. The protected areas for this ecosystem include public nature reserves managed by American, Canadian and Mexican wildlife management agencies, Native American tribes and Canadian First Nations, state wildlife management agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private nature reserves.{{Cite news|last=Tarnow|first=Anna|date=February 18, 2019|title=More than just grass: US prairies make a comeback|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/Progress-Watch/2019/0218/More-than-just-grass-US-prairies-make-a-comeback|access-date=2021-02-26|work=Christian Science Monitor}}

Generally speaking, these regions are devoid of trees, except for riparian or gallery forests associated with streams and rivers. The tallgrass prairie, with moderate rainfall and rich soils, were ideally suited to agriculture so it became a productive grain-growing region. The tallgrass prairie ecosystem covered some {{convert|170|e6acre}} of North America. Besides agriculture, much of the shortgrass prairie became grazing land for domestic livestock. Short grasslands occur in semi-arid climates while tall grasslands are in areas of higher rainfall. Although much of the grasslands are in the Great Plains ecoregion, protected grasslands can be found in other areas of Canada, Mexico and the United States. Desert (arid) grasslands are composed of sparse grassland ecoregions located in the deserts and xeric shrublands biome. Temperature extremes and low amounts of rainfall characterise these kinds of grasslands. Therefore, plants and animals are well adapted to minimize water loss.{{Cite web|title=Deserts and xeric shrublands {{!}} Biomes {{!}} WWF|url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/biomes/deserts-and-xeric-shrublands|access-date=2020-05-20|website=World Wildlife Fund|language=en}} Shrub-steppe is also a type of low-rainfall natural grassland. While arid, shrub-steppes have sufficient moisture to support a cover of perennial grasses or shrubs, a feature which distinguishes them from deserts. The shrub-steppes of North America occur in the western United States and western Canada, in the rain shadow between the Cascades and Sierra Nevada on the west and the Rocky Mountains on the east.

The expanses of grass once sustained migrations of an estimated 30 to 60 million American bison which maintained grazing pressure as a keystone species. Once bison could be found across much of North America. While they ranged from the eastern seaboard states to southeast Washington, eastern Oregon, and northeastern California, the greatest numbers were found within the great bison belt on the shortgrass plains east of the Rocky Mountains that stretched from Alberta to Texas.{{Cite news|last=Wuerthner|first=George|date=2020-09-03|title=Bison ecology, ecological influence, behavior, and decline.|url=https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2020/09/02/bison-ecology-ecological-influence-behavior-and-decline/|access-date=2021-07-09|work=The Wildlife News|language=en-US}} Grazing is important to soil, vegetation and overall ecological balance. The ecosystem was maintained by a pattern of disturbance caused by natural wildfire and grazing by bison, a pattern which is called pyric herbivory.{{Cite news |last= |first= |last2= |date=August 1, 2016 |title=Restoring prairie and fighting wildfire with (drone launched) fire(balls) |url=https://www.esa.org/esablog/2016/08/01/prairie-restoration-with-drone-fireballs/ |access-date=2022-03-14 |work=Ecotone |publisher=Ecological Society of America |language=en-US}} The indigenous peoples of the Plains occupied the land, hunting bison and pronghorn. The expansion of the United States onto the frontier decimated the population of the indigenous people and the bison.{{Cite news|last=Tutton|first=Mark|date=November 27, 2019|title=How bison are bringing life back to the prairie|url=https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/world/bison-saving-prairie-intl-c2e/index.html|access-date=2021-02-26|work=CNN|language=en}} Bison occupy less than 1% of their historical range with fewer than 20,000 bison in conservation herds on public, tribal or private protected lands. Roughly 500,000 animals are raised for commercial purposes.{{Cite news|last=Akcakaya |first=H. Resit|date=November 7, 2019|title=To Save Species from Extinction, We Must Consider More than Just Numbers|url=https://inthesetimes.com/article/endangered-species-act-recovery-extinction-habitat-ecosystem-function-bison|access-date=2020-11-04|work=In These Times|language=en}}

The plowing of the tallgrass prairie to plant crops destroyed the natural habitat. Less than 4 percent of the prairie is left according to most estimates.{{Cite magazine|last1=Berger|first1=Joel|last2=Beckmann|first2=Jon|date=May 1, 2020|title=America's Native Big Open Was Anything But Lonely Or Empty|url=https://mountainjournal.org/the-north-american-prairie-today-only-hints-at--its-former-widlife-glory|access-date=2020-09-28|magazine=Mountain Journal}} Intensive farming, urbanization, and the spread of trees - that were formerly limited by periodic fires - continue to contribute to habitat loss.{{Cite news |last=Webber |first=Tammy |date=2023-08-25 |title=North American grassland birds in peril, spurring all-out effort to save birds and their habitat |url=https://apnews.com/article/grassland-birds-decline-endangered-species-climate-ce14337f33e77f190e245270bb3e6769 |access-date=2023-08-25 |work=AP News |language=en}} Studies estimated in 2018 that grasslands in the U.S were being lost at a rate of more than {{convert|1|e6acres|e6ha|adj=mid|per year|spell=in}}.{{Cite news|last=McBride|first=Bekah|date=2018-11-15|title=Grasslands among the best landscapes to curb climate change|url=https://uwmadscience.news.wisc.edu/ecology/grasslands-among-the-best-landscapes-to-curb-climate-change/|access-date=2020-10-05|work=UWMadScience|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Madison|language=en-US}}