Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes

HIstory

As recently as 100 years ago the coastal prairie encompassed approximately 2.5 million acres in southwest Louisiana. The region includes portions of 12 parishes and is generally bordered by the Atchafalaya swamp to the east, pineywoods to the north, coastal marshes to the south and the Sabine River to the west. This region also extends into four counties of eastern Texas.

This relatively flat region was once a series of naturally treeless areas, broken only by forested streambanks called gallery forests. Prairies or "coves" between gallery forests were given local names, such as Calcasieu Prairie, Prairie Mamou, Robert's Cove, Vermillion Prairie and Prairie Swallow.

Historically, this region was only sparsely populated and human alteration of the environment was limited. When de Soto found and named the Mississippi River (originally Rio del Esperitu Santo) in 1543, Native Americans had been living in the coastal areas for 12,000 years. It was not until the late 1600s and early 1700s that Iberville and Bienville conducted extensive surveys of southeastern Louisiana and formed the initial European settlements in this region.

Prior to the turn of this century, this area was essentially an unbroken expanse of marsh, dissected by streams and bayous. Because of the frequency of thunderstorms, fire was a regular component of this system and contributed to the treeless expanse.

Barrier Islands Were Shaped by Hurricanes

Hurricanes are one of the dramatic forces that created our coastline, creating and destroying barrier islands. In the mid-1800's, Last Island in the Isle Derniers chain was a thriving resort with several hotels, numerous supporting business and a regular schedule of passenger ships bringing visitors from the mainland. The hurricane of 1856 killed many of the residents and visitors and demolished virtually every structure; the community was never rebuilt. Several subsequent hurricanes have gradually eroded the island so that it is today but a fragment of its historic size.

A similar fate visited the 2,000 inhabitants of Grand Isle and Chenier Caminada in 1893; many of the people were killed and most of the structures destroyed in another massive hurricane. Today, Grand Isle is the only permanently inhabited barrier island in Louisiana. 

Bison, Wolves and Cranes

Coastal prairie was once home to a myriad of species that no longer reside in Louisiana. Bison (referred to as "boeuf" by French explorers) were known throughout Louisiana during the late 1700s and early 1800s. A subspecies of its northern counterpart, the bison in Louisiana were not as abundant as the vast herds in the Great Plains but roamed in small groups and were known to overwinter in south Louisiana.

Red wolf was the primary predator in the coastal prairies and marshes. Although red wolves are now considered extripated in Louisiana, hybrid crosses with coyote may still remain. Whooping cranes, the tallest bird in North America, used to nest here, with the last residents noted in the marshes around White Lake in Vermilion Parish in 1939. Sandhill cranes also nested in the prairies and savanna of south Louisiana. The Louisiana vole, a small rodent and an endemic subspecies of the more common prairie vole, once lived in burrows in the pimple mounds of coastal prairie in Louisiana and east Texas. Other former residents include prairie horned lark, ornate box turtle and Attwater's prairie chicken.

Coastal Wetlands and Prairies are Disappearing

Louisiana is losing coastal wetlands faster than any other part of the U.S. Current data indicate that Louisiana loses an average of 25-30 square miles of coastal marsh each year. Since 1956, nearly 1 million acres of coastal marsh has been lost in Louisiana, most of which has been converted to open water. An additional 800,000 acres have been converted to other uses such as agriculture or urban development.

As shocking as those numbers are, they do not reflect the tremendous acreage of existing wetland that has been altered over time, mostly as a result of saltwater intrusion, which benefits salt-tolerant plant species to the detriment of species, like sawgrass, that are very intolerant of elevated salinity levels.

Causes of marsh loss include:

• Barrier island degradation, which exposes marshes to increased storm damage and saltwater intrusion.
• Natural subsidence, which occurs at a rate of about 1.8 feet per century.
• Sea level rise, which is estimated to be in the range of 1/2 foot per century.
• Excavation of nearly 8,200 miles of canals for navigation and oil and gas exploration.
• Construction of levees, most notable the massive levee system along the Mississippi River.

Constructed at a cost of $5.9 billion dollars, levees along the entire length of the Mississippi River and its major tributaries have prevented annual flooding of communities and agricultural areas in the valley. Because most of the flow of the Mississippi is now shunted directly into deeper Gulf waters, rather than being allowed to flow across expansive marshes and through estuaries, critically important nutrients and sediments bypass the marshes and flow into the Gulf. The nutrients are vital to maintaining a healthy ecosystem, while the sediments are critically important to counteract natural subsidence and sea level rise. The reduced flow of fresh water into coastal marshes also allows salt water to penetrate deep into fresh marshes..

Coastal Prairie is one of the rarest habitat types in Louisiana, with less than one percent, or about 1,000 acres, of the original 2.5 million acres remaining in a relatively natural condition. When the area was settled in the mid-1800's, the rich productive soils of the coastal prairie proved very suitable for rice production, as well as cattle grazing and other uses.

Coastal Wetlands Are Critical for Seafood and Migratory Birds

Coastal marshes are critically important to the sea food industry, as most commercially important fish, crabs and shrimp depend upon marshes and estuaries for breeding and nursery grounds. Nearly half of the nations shrimp harvest comes from Louisiana waters.  From a recreational perspective, Louisiana's coastal marshes are unrivaled. Nearly 70% of all the ducks and geese that rely on the central and Mississippi flyways use Louisiana marshes.

Louisiana coastal wetlands support over 100,000 nesting pairs of wading birds—herons, egrets, ibises and spoonbills—in some 150 different colonies. To put those numbers in national context, Louisiana supports more than 25% of the known U.S. breeding population for 8 of the 11 coastal nesting, colonial wading birds. 

The coastal prairie region is very important to hundreds of thousands of migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds, among other species. Ricefields now provide critical migratory and wintering habitat for numerous shorebird species. More than 86 species of dragonflies have been identified from the coastal prairie region in Louisiana.

Rare and Endangered Species

Ten plant species are considered globally rare by the Louisiana Natural Heritage Program. Those species range from giant blue iris, which is apparently endemic to Louisiana and reaches breathtaking abundance at Little Pecan Island in Cameron Parish, to Carex verrucosa, one of the many nondescript sedges that can only be differentiated by experts. An additional fifteen species of plants, including sea oats, the ubiquitous plant of eastern barrier islands, are considered rare in Louisiana even though they may be more common in other parts of their range.

Research on some of the few remaining prairie sites by Dr. Charles Allen and others revealed the coastal prairie of southwestern Louisiana contains over 500 species of plants in a special assemblage that makes it a distinct prairie type. Occurring only in Louisiana and Texas, coastal prairie is considered a globally-rare natural community. Several species of plants including Lindheimer's bee-balm, prairie flatsedge, and Correll's false dragon-head are considered globally rare, and protection of key tracts of coastal prairie may be critical to their long-term survival.

This part of Louisiana also supports eleven species of animals considered globally rare by the Natural Heritage Program. Most of Louisiana's of bald eagles nest in the transition zone between the cypress swamps of the Mississippi Valley and the coastal marshes of this ecoregion. At last count there were over 150 nesting pairs of bald eagles in Louisiana.

Other threatened or endangered animals include the piping plover, which winters in large numbers on Louisiana's barrier islands, the Kemp's Ridley sea turtle, which depends heavily on Louisiana estuaries as juveniles and sub-adults, and the Louisiana black bear, which inhabits some of the salt dome forests and adjacent marshes.

CONSERVATION EFFORTS

Because of the economic and recreational importance of Louisiana coastal wetlands and the unparalleled rate of loss, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on federal and state land acquisition and management programs. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been leaders in coastal wetland conservation for many decades. To date, nine wildlife management areas and six national wildlife refuges have been established in this region, totaling over 800,000 acres. Included in the list of federal refuges is Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge near Houma, which was originally acquired by TNC. TNC also assisted LDWF with the expansion of Pointe-au-Chien Wildlife Management Area.

In addition to the conservation programs of state and federal agencies, countless millions have been spent by private wetland owners to ensure long-term viability of coastal wetlands under their jurisdiction. Two coastal preserves have been established by national conservation organizations: the 23,000-acre Paul J. Rainey Preserve, owned and managed by National Audubon Society, and Little Pecan Island Preserve, which was initially acquired by TNC and later sold to a conservation buyer with a strong conservation easement.

Due to a dearth of remaining natural prairie sites, most of which are very small, the majority of conservation efforts are now in the form of restoration. The Cajun Prairie Preservation Society spent nearly a decade collecting seeds and plants to restore a ten-acre site leased from Union-Pacific by the city of Eunice. This site was entered into TNC's Natural Areas Registry Program in 1994. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with the National Wetlands Research Center, has embarked on restoring a 90-acre site north of Eunice, and plan to expand their efforts to other sites in the future, some potentially containing several thousand acres. Efforts are being made to collect seeds and plants of local genotypes in southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas to maintain the unique qualities of the coastal prairie community as much as possible.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PUBLIC VISITATION

Because our coastal wetlands are inherently difficult to explore, public access is limited. Several of the federal refuges, most notably Sabine, Lacassine and Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuges, have facilities, such as trails and interpretive centers, for visitors. The Barataria Unit of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park provides a dramatic opportunity to experience the transition between the forested wetlands of the Mississippi River Alluvial Plain ecoregion and the expansive marshes of this ecoregion; the visitors center and trail system are excellent. Although most of the state lands are accessible only by boat and are not developed, Rockefeller Refuge is accessibly by vehicle and a system of levees is maintained as an auto tour route complete with observation tower.