Mike Reed honored for decades of dedication to native wildlife conservation

Mike Reed of Cape Girardeau has been recognized as 2023 Native Plant Pioneer by Missouri Prairie Foundation for native wildlife conservation.

Missouri Prairie Foundation's Native Plant Pioneer Award recognizes individuals whose past work has been foundational to the advancement of the native plant industry and movement.

"The award was unexpected, and I'm very humbled. I'm very pleased and gratified that the Missouri Prairie Foundation's Go Native program recognized the value of the work we've done over the decades to enhance native aquatic plants," Reed said.

Reed, a Southeast Missouri native, received his bachelor's and master's degrees in fisheries and wildlife management from University of Missouri. He worked in Alabama and Texas for a number of years before he returned to Southeast Missouri and started working for Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) as a fisheries biologist, where he retired.

"In Texas I was able to work with some aquatic ecologists who taught me about native aquatic plants and native plant management. When I came back to Missouri, I was able to bring that knowledge with me to my job at Missouri Department of Conservation," he said.

He then applied his knowledge to MDC-managed wetlands and impoundments. He worked with MDC staff and private land owners to begin developing native aquatic plant communities in MDC's wetland complexes.

"Reed worked diligently with the interdisciplinary team that carried out the renovation and redesign of portions of MDC's Duck Creek Conservation Area in Missouri's Bootheel. This visionary re-design of an MDC intensively managed wetland area included adding multiple water depths and integrating desirable native plantings. These units have become a showcase of progressive wetland design," Missouri Prairie Foundation said in a release.

According to the release, a poignant example of reed's pioneering work is the use of native plantings of emergents, such as pickerel weed, around the edges of Cape Girardeau municipal park lakes to reduce nuisance Canada geese issues.

Reed talked about the importance of native wildlife preservation and its many benefits with Southeast Missourian.

"If we look at historical conditions we had a few hundred years ago, we realize that we've lost the vast majority of our wetlands in Southeast Missouri. What we have left is only remnants. The whole concept is to try to restore some of native aquatic plant communities that were once present so that we benefit our native wildlife", he said.

He explained that through the preservation of native plants nature gains an aesthetic value as a lot of those plants are "quite attractive". The benefits of native wildlife is not limited to "pretty blossoms" he said, as there is a lot of use in them for pollinators such as bees and butterflies whose decline in number have affected our agriculture and food resources.

During his many years at MDC, Reed taught many workshops on aquatic plant management. He worked to spread his knowledge to other state agencies in other parts of the country through presentations as they started to see the value of native wildlife, he said.

Reed has now been retired for two months and hopes for his efforts to be carried on by the new generation of young, enthusiastic and passionate staff.

"I'm very hopeful that the momentum that we developed over 25 years be picked up by other folks and they carry it forward," he said.