By Daniel Winningham
The City Park had a strong smell of smoke earlier this month and there was good reason.
The Missouri Department of Conservation assisted park staff as well as the fire department in burning an area just south of the large gravel parking lot adjacent to the larger soccer field — close to North Parkview and Janet Drive.
“Perry County and Perryville has a lot of sinkholes and we were looking at ways to stabilize that sinkhole there in the park, so we went in there with a native warm season grass planting and forbs and did some shrub plantings around those openings,” said Jason Crites, a fisheries management biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. “It was time to do the burn, just to kind of restart things a little bit, hopefully we’ll start seeing some more grasses and forbs pull in this spring and summer.”
The project is one step toward helping stabilize soils in and around sinkholes, according to Crites.
“We’re trying to stabilize soils the best we can,” Crites said. “It’s tough with sinkholes. The development of those sinkholes is because of the dissolving of the limestone underneath. “
The burn may have another added benefit in protecting endangered wildlife.
The grotto sculpin, a federal endangered species is only found in Perry County. Genetic testing in 2013 determined the grotto sculpin was unique enough to deserve its own scientific name.
“It is a rare fish with a very limited distribution, meaning it is very vulnerable to extinction,” according to an aquatic invertebrates field guide available at the MDC web site. “Because the water in their caves comes from sinkholes and porous rocks above, land use easily impacts their water quality.”
The fish occurs only in certain caves in tributaries of the Bois Brule River drainage, according to the MDC.
“If we can try and stabilize those surface soils the best we can, and filter what’s running off into those sinkholes, that will ultimate benefit the sculpin,” Crites said.
The controlled burn is viewed as a process that will ultimately help other plants start growing.
“Some plants can start sprouting early and shade out others,” Crites said. “The seeds may not germinate. If you can knock back certain plants with burns, you can get some understory growth and those seed bases, allowing light to hit them.”
Fires as a habitat helper used to be more common, according to Crites.
“Wildfires used to run across our landscape pretty regularly,” Crites said. “It’s good to have some of that disturbance with your resource just to kind of regenerate thing. Sometimes certain plants may be a little more aggressive than others. If you can get those back, the seed base is in the soil a lot of times, you can get a refreshment of resources a little bit.”
This was the first one done in Perryville, but more could be on the way.
Land use around sinkholes has a profound impact on groundwater quality and sculpin health, according to the MDC. The sinkholes supply water to cave streams and groundwater sources. This makes sinkhole pollution control imperative and establishing a buffer of trees and other plants around sinkholes reduces soil erosion and filters out herbicide and pesticide runoff.
“Over time, leaf litter and dead vegetation can accumulate on an area, and restrict or slow the growth of native plants,” said Kyle Lorenz, a private land conservationist with the MDC. “The main goal of the prescribed burn was to remove that leaf litter and other dead plant material from the area. By doing this, it will allow the native vegetation that was planted to have plenty of space and resources to grow and thrive. A secondary goal of the burn was to control small, woody vegetation. It will not affect the larger, more mature trees, but we do not want the area to become overgrown with early successional trees, which will again limit the native wildflowers and grasses from becoming better established.”
“The burn itself doesn’t directly promote pollination,” Lorenz said. “However, it does help manage the plants that will hopefully attract and support pollinators.”
The MDC is looking at doing similar projects at other parks in the Perryville area, according to Crites.
“Those are still in the planning phases,” he said.
The controlled burn area on March 3 was a quarter to half acre.
Signage from the Missouri Department of Conservation indicate the area as a “pollinator habitat,” and states MDC provides support for the area and conservation in the community.
“The wildflowers are good for pollinators, bees and that sort of thing,” Crites said. “It benefits those as well.”
