Rescue the fescue

The health of the grasslands in Waterton Lakes National Park has been declining since the late 19th century. Roughly 25 percent of grasslands in the lowest elevations have been colonized by shrubs and aspen forest since 1889. The main causes are a lack of fire and grazing bison; an increase in invasive plants has also taken place. Today, 10 percent of Waterton’s estimated 1,100 plant species are nonnative, and many of these are harmful to grassland health and biodiversity. Representative of the ailing grassland is the status of the northern leopard frog. Threatened in Alberta, northern leopard frogs form important links between wetland and grassland habitats, moving between the two for reproduction and feeding. On the decline since the 1970s, they disappeared from the park in 1980.