Paynes Prairie is a state park located just south of Gainesville, near the little town of Micanopy. It is accessible from both Interstate 75 and U.S. Highway 441. This 21,000 acre preserve is chock full of flora and fauna, and at times does not seem like the Florida most people think about. Payne’s Prairie is a living and evolving reminder of Florida’s rich cultural and ecological history, and a fine example of conservation at work.
Paynes Prairie is an incredibly diverse landscape that at once leads visitors through oak hammocks, pine stands, marshy grasslands, then vast and lush prairie lands. It is a photographer’s and wildlife lover’s paradise, with copious amounts of incredible native plant life and wildlife roaming the land, with everything from alligators, snakes, numerous birds, fox, bobcats, deer, wild horses, and even a herd of bison to be found and observed in their natural lairs. The herd of bison that lives on Paynes Prairie is not actually native to the Prairie at all, but was brought from Oklahoma in the 1970’s as part of an ecological restoration project, in hopes of restoring the Prairie to its pre-European settler conditions (it was then that bison roamed free on the prairie, and whose numbers were decimated by the Europeans and Seminole Indians living there). Today, the bison are thriving, with several babies having been born through the years.
