By Fred Fuller
The Sibley Prairie in Brownstown Township, Wayne County, is the largest remaining prairie in Michigan. For years, it was owned by one family, but following the death in July of the patriarch of the family, who loved the outdoors, the property is slated to be auctioned off on August 27. It is zoned for residential or industrial development.
Several Michigan conservation groups have banded together to try to preserve this rare ecosystem, which would also be a welcome green space in suburban Detroit. It is located just west of Telegraph Road and south of Sibley Road.
The conservation groups are trying to persuade the State of Michigan to purchase the land through the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. They are also trying to persuade The Nature Conservancy to assist with the prairie’s preservation. But these organizations have said they can’t provide funding in time for the auction, and that only a wealthy benefactor could fund the acquisition.
Many people are not aware that Michigan once had prairies. Most prairies were in southwest Michigan near the Indiana border, but a few were scattered throughout the Lower Peninsula. Most of them were farmed in the past or otherwise developed.
The Sibley Prairie is a very special place. It was once large enough to have a buffalo herd. The last native Michigan bison was shot there in 1882. It has numerous rare and endangered native Michigan plants, such as the Prairie Fringed Orchid, White Lady-Slipper, and Sullivant’s Milkweed, as well as threatened and endangered insect species such as the Duke’s Skipper butterfly. It has approximately 200 different native plant species, at least 30 rare plants, and 20 rare animal species. It also supports many migratory songbirds that favor prairie habitat.
Only about 500 acres of the Sibley Prairie are left undeveloped. A few small parts of it, ranging in size from 3 to 39 acres, have been preserved by local land conservancies, but the remaining 440 acres are now up for auction. (For comparison, a square mile of land has 650 acres). It will be a devastating loss to Michigan’s history and environment if it is not preserved.
The historical significance of Sibley Prairie is that it was probably nurtured for thousands of years by some of Michigan’s native peoples, such as the Wyandot and possibly Pottawatomi tribes, and there may be clues to their culture preserved in the prairie. In recent years, it has been discovered that Native Americans often managed prairies by burning them to keep out trees and shrubs, and to encourage the growth of prairie
grasses and plants. They harvested the prairies for food, medicine, and fiber, and hunted animals and wildfowl there.
Sibley Prairie is specifically classified as a Lakeplain Prairie, which is ranked as an ecosystem globally as “G2 – Imperiled” and in Michigan as “S1 – Critically Imperiled.” It was found only in nine counties in Michigan, eight of which border Saginaw Bay, southern Lake Huron, and western Lake Erie. Lakeplain prairies grew on the mostly flat lakebeds left behind from the large glacial lakes that formed when the last glaciers melted, before the glacial lakes receded to form the Great Lakes we have today. They are underlain with thick layers of clay and sand, and in different regions, they have different soil types, leading to unique species of plants in different areas.
Michigan has less than 1% of its original lakeplain prairies left, and Sibley Prairie is the largest and highest-quality of those. That it is so close to urban Detroit is remarkable. It provides a tremendous recreational and educational opportunity for the state’s most densely populated area. But if it is sold off for development, it will be gone forever.
If you would like to help save the Sibley Prairie, contact the Southeast Michigan Land Conservancy at info@smlcland.org or (734) 484-6565. Their website is https://www.smlcland.org.
You can contact The Nature Conservancy and urge them to take action on this issue at https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/michigan/contact-us.
You can also help by sending letters to the Governor, the Department of Natural Resources, and other officials via: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/save-the-sibley-prairie-a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity
