The Missouri Prairie Foundation is celebrating the preservation of a 68 acre prairie

SARCOXIE, Mo. — The Missouri Prairie Foundation is celebrating the preservation of a 68 acre prairie.

Saturday afternoon, the Missouri Prairie Foundation cut the ribbon on the Rae Letsinger Prairie near Sarcoxie.

The property is named after Letsinger who had the largest private insect collections in Missouri with more than 22,000 specimens.

The foundation bought the prairie in May 2020 and had to wait for the dedication until Coronavirus restrictions loosened.

Bruce Schuette, Vice President for Science and Management Missouri Prairie Foundation, says, “This will continue to be a refuge for those rare and very characteristic and restricted plants and animals. But the prairie ecosystem is also unique in a number of different ways. It helps protect water quality because of the root systems for these prairie plants.”

There used to be 400,000 acres of prairie in Newton and Jasper county, but now there are only a handful left.

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