Scatter Creek Wildlife Area is a seven-unit reserve in southern Thurston County, Washington, protecting one of the region’s most important remnants of the south Puget Sound prairie ecosystem, along with wetlands, forests, riparian corridors, and river habitat. Formed on glacial outwash soils about 15,000 years ago and long maintained as open grassland by Indigenous burning, these prairies later declined sharply through settlement, farming, invasive plants, and fire suppression, leaving only about 2 percent of the original prairie. Since the mid-1990s, restoration has focused on removing invasives, replanting native species, and conserving rare plants and animals across a biodiverse protected network.