Driftless Area Farm Returns to its Roots
March 19, 2025
Dan McGraw is restoring oak savanna with Sand County Foundation’s help
DODGEVILLE, Wis. -- “I call it my spark bird,” Dan McGraw says of the Long-eared owl he first saw on his land in 2019.
It sparked an interest in providing bird habitat on McGraw’s 240-acre farm in southwest Wisconsin. The owl he spotted was attracted to something his father Paul had done years prior to conserve soil.
For decades, the McGraw land had been heavily grazed and farmed for row crops. When Dan’s father Paul McGraw enrolled 16 acres of highly erodible pastureland into the federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, part of the agreement was to plant a mix of trees, including white pines. Long-eared owls are known to prefer a habitat of conifer trees and grasslands to hunt mice.
“I have the ability to do something here.”
Dan McGraw graduated from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in agricultural business and worked for the Farm Credit Administration before working in public accounting in Madison. He and his wife Jill bought the farm from his mother in 2010. Since then, they’ve explored ways to preserve its unique landscape.
“There are parts of this property that in my opinion never should have been in row crop production ag,” he said of steep contoured crop fields that were still erosion prone. “It took me a while to figure out what the farm wanted to do.”
Although much of the surrounding area in hilly Iowa County consists of pastures for beef cattle and contoured hay and cornfields, it was also once home to ecosystems of grasslands and oak savannas. As those ecosystems became scarce, it has led to lower grassland bird populations.
Inspired by neighbors who were retiring crop fields and reestablishing grassland, the McGraws enrolled their farm’s remaining crop fields into the Conservation Reserve Program in 2013. Back then, Dan had hopes of luring big whitetail deer and grassland birds. When the trophy bucks didn’t materialize, Dan decided to pivot and instead “do what the farm wants to do.”
Dan’s neighbor John Kivikoski introduced him to staff from Southern Driftless Grasslands and Pheasants Forever. That pairing would prove to be fortuitous. Cindy Becker from Southern Driftless Grasslands and Britta Petersen of Pheasants Forever surveyed McGraw’s pastures and overgrown forests in search of native plants, remnant prairie, and oak trees.
What was left of McGraw’s oak savanna was overgrown with invasives trees and other vegetation. Despite it being hard to walk through, Becker and Petersen saw its potential.
They informed McGraw of financial and technical assistance being offered to landowners willing to restore prairie and oak savanna ecosystems in the ecologically important Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin.
The funding came through a federal Regional Conservation Partnership Program administered by the Sand County Foundation, a Madison-based nonprofit that works with farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners to improve soil health, water quality, and wildlife habitat.
McGraw is one of 60 landowners, covering 2,000 acres, who qualified for funding to develop forest management plans. Professional foresters certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) write the plans tailored to the restoration goals of each landowner.
Part of McGraw’s agreement with Sand County Foundation allowed him to solicit restoration professionals. Adaptive Restoration of Mount Horeb, a full-service ecological restoration and land management company, cut large invasive trees, used a forestry mower to clear brush, and spot sprayed re-sprouts.
McGraw said working with Sand County Foundation and the NRCS has been “fabulous, easy” and has led to introductions to other like-minded landowners. To pay it forward, McGraw has hosted three on-farm events that connect organizations with landowners interested in exploring conservation opportunities.
“It’s like the field of dreams.”
Just like the Long-eared owl, spotting a rare Henslow’s Sparrow brought McGraw satisfaction. It’s one of 53 bird species he’s identified in recent years on field cameras. Bird photos are among the conservation successes he’s chronicled in a binder filed with aerial maps, family history, and lists of native wildflowers that have emerged in recent years.
“It’s like the field of dreams. If you build it, they will come,” he said. “If you provide the habitat, they will come.”
McGraw holds off on any prescribed burning of his grasslands until after the primary nesting season is over. Just as the hooves of bison once stirred the soil of the Great Plains, McGraw lightly stocks a herd of cattle to graze 80 acres of his farm. “You have to have disturbance on the land,” he explained.
“We have an unbelievable number of good things going on in this neighborhood,” McGraw said of the contiguous parcels that provide habitat to grassland birds. He’s also noticed an uptick in bobcats, badgers, and bats.
From a deer stand each hunting season, Dan and his daughter Cassie, discuss their land management decisions. How did the farm react, and did their goals change over the past year. There’s one thing they’ll always agree on.
“The farm has provided for our family for a long time,” he said. “We’re giving it a long-deserved rest.”