Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Revegetation Monitoring Summary—2025
Owen M. 2026. Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Revegetation Monitoring Summary—2025. National Park Service, Southern Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network, Pecos, New Mexico.
In July of 2024 and 2025, the Southern Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (SOPN) completed gridpoint surveys in two newly revegetated areas at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (NHS). The areas surveyed were part of the 2022 land acquisition and are former cropland. Each area has been drill seeded once with native plants—one small area in March of 2023 and the larger, second area in March of 2024. We surveyed these areas along a 100-m grid and recorded the cover of native grasses, native forbs, non-native grasses, non-native forbs, bare soil, and soil disturbance. In 2025, we began recording cover of individual native grass species with 5% or greater cover. Mean cover of native grasses showed a substantial increase from 2024 to 2025, especially in the more recently seeded area. Mean cover of other functional groups stayed relatively the same, except for a rise in non-native forbs in some areas. Individual native grass species recorded in 2025 were grama grasses, sand dropseed, and switchgrass, but the species dominant to regional shortgrass prairies, blue grama, was only present in trace amounts. The functional group with the highest mean cover in nearly every year/section was non-native forbs, with two main species observed, kochia and Russian thistle. We recommend controlling these species and encouraging establishment of native grasses through regular mowing treatments—by mowing the seeded areas to 4–6 inches once vegetation reaches 8–10 inches in height—for the span of the two growing seasons following seeding. Table summaries and figures are included in the body of this report, and maps showing distribution and canopy cover for all functional groups are located in Appendix A.
- Type
- Resource Brief
- Authors
- Owen, Merran
- Date of Issue
- 2026-01
- Publisher
- National Park Service, Southern Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network, Pecos, New Mexico.
- Units
- SAND , SOPN
- Keywords
- drill seeding, Exotic Plant Brief, Exotic Plant Monitor, exotic plant monitoring, Exotic plants, invasive plant, invasive plant monitoring, monitoring, revegetation, shortgrass prairie
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Invasive Species | Invasive/Exotic plants