Fall 98 Cover F&B_ Fall 98 Cover F&B 12/24/15 9:45 AM Page 3

Chicago EXPLORING NATURE & CULTURE

WFALILL 19D98 ERNES S

FIRE AS A FRIEND • T HINKING LIKE A SEED Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page cov2

is Chicago Wilderness?

Chicago Wilderness is some of the finest and most signifi - cant nature in the temperate world, with roughly 200,000 acres of protected natural lands harboring native plant and animal communities that are more rare—and their survival more globally threatened—than the tropical rain forests.

CHICAGO WILDERNESS is an unprecedented alliance of more than 60 public and private organizations working together to study and restore, protect and manage the precious natural resources of the Chicago region for the benefit of the public.

Chicago WILDERNES S is a new quarterly magazine that seeks to articulate a vision of regional identity linked to nature and our natural heritage, to celebrate and promote the rich nat - ural areas of this region, and to inform readers about the work of the many organizations engaged in collaborative conservation. Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 1

CHICAGO WILDERNESS A Regional Nature Reserve Keeping the Home Fires Burning

or generations of us inculcated with the gospel according them, both by white men and by Indians—par accident; and Fto Smokey, setting fire to woods and prairies on purpose yet many more where it is voluntarily done for the purpose amounts to blasphemy. Yet those who love the land have of getting a fresh crop of grass, for the grazing of their horses, been wrestling with some new ideas about fire—new ideas and also for easier travelling during the next summer.” that are very old. Ancient Chicagua and the ancestral lands throughout It turns out that our native landscape was bathed by fire, the Midwest burned—and burned often. evolved under fire, thrived on fire. Only when we denied And now we burn again to save the nature that was and fire, through our civilizing intercession, did plants and ani - remains the heritage of this region. Even in the city we mals living in fire-dependent ecosystems themselves begin burn—carefully, under highly prescribed conditions, to be disappearing wholesale from sure—yet whoever would restore the land. As Alex Blumberg so them must torch our ancient ably points out in “Fire As a grasses and oak woodlands. Friend” (p. 4), prairies without The prospect confounds. fire are like rainforests without Burning today is counter- rain: an aberration, a sick and intuitive. Then the scientists dying thing. produce the data, and we learn Pages 4 and 8 of this issue the need to burn a prairie to are graced with the noble keep it healthy. Yes, I say to fire paintings of George Catlin (for as a friend, yes. which we are deeply indebted Chicago Wilderness itself is to the Gilcrease Museum of confounding. We humans have Tulsa, Oklahoma). Catlin was trammeled the landscape for O

P an artist and hero. A young eons, shaping—and being shaped P O

S lawyer in 1832, he one day dis - by—the living land. I T

E posed of all his worldly The abiding, affirming vision : A

m attachments, stocked up on of Chicago Wilderness is neither e r i

c artist’s supplies, and embarked to trash humans as abusers, nor a n

on a life beyond the frontier, to revere nature as something g o P l h d painting Native Americans o somehow untouched by the t f o i : n

K c

and their landscape, often as i hand of man. m h

K o a

the first Euro-American to visit r The abiding, affirming vision n p e

l e a s

a given tribe or watershed. / of Chicago Wilderness is a L n i f o e

d “The prairies burning form T middle course, namely, that h d r o i u n g

g some of the most beautiful humans and other species share a h

t t h h e

scenes that are to be witnessed home, that we can shape and be i L s e n t s l e in this country,” Catlin wrote, shaped by each other in mutually .

P

h “and also some of the most sub - beneficial ways. Our adventure, o t o lime. Every acre of these vast prairies (being covered for like Catlin’s, is one of discovery and change. And what we

b y

hundred and hundreds of miles, with a crop of grass, which learn may mean the difference between life and death for L e n

dies and dries in the fall) burns over during the fall or early much of local nature.We learn and we reach out to friends M e

s in the spring, leaving the ground of a black and doleful color. and neighbors with this welcoming message of restoration s i n

e “There are many modes by which fire is communicated to and renewal. Yes, I say to Chicago Wilderness, yes. o / R o o

t Debra Shore

R e

s EDITOR o u r c e s .

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K i m

K

CONTENTS a r p e l e s / L i f e

T h r o u

FEATURES g h

t

4 h e

L e n FIRE AS A FRIEND by Alex Blumberg ...... 4 s The archaeology and future of fire. And what about Bambi? And Thumper—and the catch-22 of the Karner blue?

THINKING LIKE A SEED by Robyn Flakne ...... 10 P h o

How a Swiss fellow invented velcro—and other seed surprises. t o :

M a r y

A .

R o o t / R o o t

R e

D E PA RTMENTS s o

10 u r c e Into the Wild...... 13 s Our guide to the best nature in the region—what to do and see, when to go, where to hike, bike, canoe, ride horses, watch birds, even find solitude. Plus listings of outdoor work parties. Working the Wilderness: Prairie Burn by Joe Neumann . . .14 Observe a prescribed burn at Markham prairie, waterpack and all. Natural Events Calendar ...... 20 P

What’s debuting on nature’s stage this season with tips for where to see, h o t o : hear, and find the natural wonders of Chicago Wilderness. C a r o l

23 F r e

Meet Your Neighbors ...... 21 e m a

Meet migrating hawks — broad-wings, Cooper’s, and ospreys soaring. n Meet Joan Meersman, model seed collector. Meet the prairie gentian, late-blooming beauty a.k.a blue blossom medicine. Chicago The Strange Case of the Vanishing Oak Woods ...... 24 WILDERNES S What happens to oak forests with—and without—fire? EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: A learning activity for family and friends. Barbara Whitney Carr, Chicago Botanic Garden Laura Gates, Field Museum News from Chicago Wilderness ...... 26 Dan Griffin, Forest Preserve District of DuPage County George Rabb, Brookfield Zoo Guest Essay ...... 30 EDITOR ...... Debra Shore First Metropolis of the Future by Jane Elder. Will the bold vision of SENIOR EDITOR ...... Stephen Packard Chicago Wilderness inspire the world’s first urban biosphere reserve? ASSISTANT EDITORS ...... Sheryl De Vore ...... Chris Howes

Reading Pictures ...... 32 NEWS EDITOR ...... Elizabeth Sanders A bittersweet tale of good and evil. ART DIRECTOR ...... Liita Forsyth ASSISTANT DESIGNER ...... Terri Wymore EDITORIAL CONSULTANT ...... Bill Aldrich

Chicago WILDERNESS is published quarterly. Subscriptions are $12/yr. Please address all subscription correspondence to Chicago WILDERNESS , P.O. Box 268, Downers Grove, IL 60515-0268. Please direct editorial inquiries and correspondence to Editor, Chicago WILDERNESS , 9232 Avers Ave, Evanston, IL 60203. (847) 677-2470. e-mail: [email protected] Unsolicited COVER PHOTO : In the 14,000-acre wilds of manuscripts cannot be returned without a self-addressed Palos, Cook County Forest Preserves by Mike stamped envelope. Chicago WILDERNESS is printed on MacDonald. recycled paper and should be passed around from friend to friend. Chicago WILDERNESS is endorsed by the Chicago OPPOSITE: Autumn mist at Goose Lake Region Biodiversity Council. The opinions expressed in these pages, however, are the authors’ own. © by Chicago

Prairie southwest of Joliet, with settler’s P h

o Wilderness Magazine , Inc. t

cabin on the horizon. By Ronald W. Kurowski. o :

E

r ISSN 1097-8917. Postmaster, address service requested to i c

W , PO Box 268, Downers Grove, IL AT RIGHT: Rare bird stops by city park. a Chicago WILDERNESS l t e 60515-0268. r

See page 26. s All rights reserved.

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Fire As Friend In the past two decades, scientific opinion has turned decidedly against the gospel according to Smokey. Scientists now understand that fire is, in fact, the norm. by Alex Blumberg

wenty years ago, Jo Ellen Siddens would have been If the scene to the left calls to mind a cathedral, spacious locked up as an arsonist. Today I’m in the passenger and gently lit, the scene to the right seems more like a Tseat as Siddens, an ecologist with the DuPage warren, dark and claustrophobic. County Forest Preserve District, bumps her county-issue Twenty years ago the entire area looked like the tangle Dodge Caravan along a gravel access road in Waterfall to the right. Two hundred years ago it resembled the grove Glen near the village of Lemont. to the left. These clashing versions of the same landscape Abruptly, the scenery shifts. Siddens stops the van. now lie side by side. They offer testimony to how the land A line runs at a right angle from the road into the woods, has changed in the 150 years since Europeans first settled dividing one world from another. On the left side of the here. Jo Ellen, her counterparts in other districts, and line, giant oaks form open chambers, with vaulted ceilings countless volunteers throughout the Chicago region are of arching boughs and lush carpets of woodland wildflowers. slowly undoing these changes, restoring the land to what To the right of the line, eight- to twelve-foot buckthorn and they see as its healthy natural condition. Their main tool is honeysuckle trees lurch from the ground at asymmetric fire. The snarl to the right of the dividing line hasn’t felt angles, knotting their branches into organic barbed wire. flame in over half a century. The glade to the left is

4 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 5

torched every couple of years. “Someday,” Siddens says the before side, the burned side, stretches an oak savanna wistfully, “we’ll be able to do a full landscape burn through - that pre-biblical Native Americans would recognize. White out the entire preserve.” oaks, bur oaks, and shagbark hickory form a loose, open Twenty years ago, Jo Ellen would have been branded a canopy. A patchwork of woodland flowers and grasses blan - threat to society for even uttering such a sentiment, let alone kets the ground. Butterflies flit, and sunlight dapples. It’s taking steps to carry it out. Burning, went the conventional open, inviting—literally a sylvan glade. And on the

Removing fire from a fire-dependent ecosystem is like removing rain from the rainforest. If fire were suppressed long enough, many ecosystems would disappear entirely.

wisdom, didn’t restore, it destroyed. So firmly did we believe unburned side? “The darkness and dankness remind me of our anti-fire credo that we anointed an anthropomorphized the stereotypical evil forest in a Disney movie,” says Jo cartoon bear to preach it on TV. But in the past two Ellen Siddens, “where branches reach out to grab you and decades, scientific opinion has turned decidedly against the trees trip you with their roots.” All the open spaces are gospel according to Smokey. We used to believe, mistakenly, now clogged with an impenetrable understory of brushy that fire was an unnatural deviation, a calamity. Scientists buckthorn and honeysuckle, an occasional native cherry or now understand that fire is, in fact, the norm. “[L]ife invented fire,” writes natural historian Steven Pyne in his book Vestal Fire . “The plants that created fuel also cre - ated oxygen and thus closed the Earth’s fire triangle.” The prehuman landscape—bathed in flammable gas, stocked with plants grown alternately lush by rain and brittle by drought, and swept by electrical storms roiling perpetually across its surface—was a literally volatile mix. Given such an uncanny coincidence of fuel, oxygen and incendiary spark, how could the planet do anything but burn? Throughout most of the world’s environments, fire was a cyclic phenomenon, just like the shifting seasons, the daily tides, the summer monsoons, or periodic drought. Like them, fire helped define a region’s natural rhythms and shape the evolution of the plants and animals living there. Different environments experience different fire regimes. Yellowstone’s lodgepole pine forests burn rarely, once every 100 years or so. Yosemite’s ponderosas burn more fre - quently, about once a decade. The Midwestern tallgrass prairie might have burned as often as every year or two. No matter what the regime however, removing fire from a fire-dependent ecosystem is like removing rain from the rainforest. Without it, lodgepole seeds won’t germinate, ponderosas grow crowded and susceptible to disease, prairie grasses succumb to fire-sensitive invaders. If fire were sup - pressed long enough, these ecosystems would disappear entirely. For millennia, fire swept through the woodlands, marshes, savannas, and prairies of Illinois every few years. Since the passage of the Homestead Act, the interval is a century and a half and counting. P h o t To see how catastrophically fire suppression has dis - o :

S t e rupted the ecosystems of Illinois, there’s no better vantage p h e n

P

point than the dividing line at Waterfall Glen, which doc - a c k a r uments the process in vivid before and after snapshots. On d Eared gerardia and most of the other rare and wonderful OPPOSITE: George Catlin, Prairie Meadows Burning, on the animals and plants of Chicago Wilderness owe their lives to Missouri, 1852, oil on canvas, 0176.2133, from the Collection frequent fire. of Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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dogwood thrown in for good measure. fire, says Ed Collins, an ecologist with the McHenry If you kneel and peer below the branches, your gaze County Conservation District, we’re heading for “a world P h o t

might encounter the thick trunk of an oak. These trunks of starlings and dandelions.” o :

W i l

once spread the kind of massive lower boughs which sup - In many parts of the Chicago region, by the time the l i a m

ported sunlit maidens on garden swings in 19th-century nature of this eventual destination finally dawned on us, we H a l Impressionist paintings. As the overgrown thorn scrub rose were halfway there already. “We got used to thinking of a l up to envelope them in shadow, these lower branches rot - ted and dropped. But to witness the most chilling evidence of the landscape’s decline, one has only to look down. The ground on the burned side, suffused with light trickling The woodland flora that came up after a through the open canopy, is blanketed by a living tapes - burning, Lampa discovered, “were a thousand try—the fabric woven of over a hundred species of native grasses and wildflowers, the design formed by an intricate times rarer and more diverse than the garlic jumble of leaf, petal, pattern, and color. Butterflies flit, birds sing. By contrast, in the gloom beneath the buck - mustard that was there before.” thorn on the unburned side, nothing grows, flits, or sings. The snake’s eye view reveals the odd eruption of spindly trunks, the occasional lonely buckthorn seedling, and huge woods as a place you couldn’t walk through,” says Wayne stretches of barren dirt. Lampa, retired chief ecologist of the DuPage County Forest This is the lesson of the dividing line. On the simple Preserve District. “The only thing you ever saw was buck - theme of life, evolution composes eternal fugues and varia - thorn, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy…we thought that tions. From the randomness of natural selection emerges a was the way it was supposed to look.” Evidence to the con - mosaic of complex interrelationships and precise ecological trary gradually revealed itself in various ways. First niches. Fire is the grout which holds it all together. When clue—the species composition of the region’s natural com - we stop the land from burning, this mosaic, this jigsaw puz - munities was changing. In almost all the woods and zle that evolution has been assembling for the last 10 savannas, the oldest and largest trees were oaks, but among million years, is swept away. A substitute ecosystem the swirl of young maple, cherry, honeysuckle, and buck - replaces it, one which is simplified to the lowest common thorn growing below, oak saplings were absent. Second denominator plants and animals—the generalists that can clue—periodic inventories revealed a steady decline in rare survive in as dirty and disrupted an environment as we can. plant and insect species, even in the protected forest pre - The process is akin to emptying a zoo of all its animals and serves. And then there was the occasional mysterious plant replacing them with pigeons, rats, and roaches. Without name. “Until we started burning,” recalls Lampa, “I could

6 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 7

never figure out why they called it the ‘woodland sun - right after the discovery of penicillin. “It’s night and day in flower.’ It just didn’t grow in the woods.” Identifying the the forest preserves,” says Wayne Lampa enthusiastically. problem, however, isn’t the same as fixing it. Ed Collins “Take the Indian plantain. Back in early 70s we used to get explains, “The crucial role that fire had in Midwestern real excited when we saw them; they were so rare. For a wooded communities is probably something we’ve come to while they disappeared entirely. Now they’re everywhere.” understand better in the last decade to 15 years.” The real - Lampa’s confidence in prescribed fire is shared by wild - ization came partly from revisiting archival materials. lands managers throughout the Chicago Wilderness region. “There were always references in the literature to the open - Perhaps the most common comment I heard was this: ness of the woods,” says Wayne Lampa, “but we just ignored “We thought ______(fill in the rare species) was gone, but them.” Settler diaries, surveyor’s notes, and early newspa - since we’ve started burning it’s come back.” This enthusi - pers corroborate what we now know to be true: Illinois asm speaks to another benefit of burn management. In burned and it burned often. every claim of miraculous resurrection, every breathless The flora also tell the story of fire’s importance. Nature comparison of before to after, lurks another resource that could not have designed a better tree for ensuring that the fire has restored—hope. area around it burns than the bur oak—a strange hybrid of flame-retardant trunk and incendiary leaves. Then there were the data that emerged by accident. When Wayne Lampa was conducting his prairie burns for DuPage County, rather than dig a fire break at the point where the prairie ended, he let the fire burn through to the small creek, which flowed several hundred yards back in the adjacent woods. The woodland flora that came up after a burning,

he discovered, “were a thousand times rarer and more s n e L

diverse than the garlic mustard that was there before. e h t

h g

Things we had never seen in the area began cropping up.” u o r h T In today’s forest preserve districts, the woods are no e f i L / longer burned by accident. In fact, so firmly has the idea of s e l e p r

burning taken root in the orthodoxy of ecological restora - a K

m i K

tion, it’s been translated into jargon. Lighting a fire is now : o t o

called burn management. And listening to a bunch of ecol - h P ogists talk about burn management, one gets a sense of Land managers have an outstanding safety record with prescribed what it must have been like to hang out in medical circles fire. Backfires and good planning keep the fire contained.

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300 million years ago 12,000 BC—1900 AD The atmosphere is so As the glaciers retreat - The History of rich in oxygen—30 per - ed, human-set fires cent—that a world like joined lightning-set. today’s would have Studies of fire scars FI RE been impossible. Fires and even-aged stands would not stop; every - of old timber show thing burnable burned consistent patterns of repeatedly, as soon as fire frequency. it grew and was ignited.

. 1800s ) m u

t 200 million years ago Euro-American settlers e r o

b Due to changes in the learned burning from r A ( interactions between the Indians, but a cul - n o s i

d animals, plants and fire, tural reaction against a M

, the Earth’s oxygen lev - fire, starting in Europe n i s

n els dropped to about 21 in the 1800s, was soon o c s i percent of the atmos - reflected here in con - W

f o

phere, as it is today. troversy over fire. y t i s r e v i

n 15 to 5 million 1907 U

:

o years ago Yale’s H. H. Chapman t o h

P The world’s grassland studies the burning of The first burns for prairie restoration were done by Aldo Leopold (in the white hat) communities devel - southern pine by tim - oped, with fire a cru - ber growers to prepare and others at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s. cial component, lead - seedbeds for longleaf ing to new forms of life pine and to prevent including the large pine from being taken grazing animals, and over by hardwoods and humans. brush. As a result, he What About Bambi? ell, prairie plants may have regenerative root sys - One thing is certain though. The losses among verte - Wtems that quickly resprout after fire, and bur oaks brate species pale next to the massive casualties suffered by may have flame-retardant bark, but all animals, with the their exoskeletal cousins. The irony is that most of the exception of certain barnacles, possess an even greater rarer insects in the Chicago Wilderness are dependent on advantage when it comes to dealing with fire—they can habitats which will disappear without regular burn man - move. This ability, combined with the average burn’s agement. Call it the catch-22 of the Karner blue. stately pace of a quarter of a mile per hour, allows most The Karner blue, an endangered species of butterfly woodland and prairie animals to regard fire with a stun - found at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, feeds ning lack of anxiety. If you ever had any doubt that exclusively on a flower called the lupine. The lupine Bambi was just a cartoon, says ecologist Wayne Lampa, depends on fire, while the Karner is what biologists all you have to do is observe a real deer in a fire. “They euphemistically call fire-sensitive. It attaches its egg cases just don’t seem concerned; a lot of times they’ll just hop to the stalks of dune grasses to overwinter; the grass roots right over the fire line.” And as for Thumper and the lit - survive a fall burn, the eggs tend not to. While a lot of tle woodland creatures—they have other defenses as well. attention is paid to the Karner because of its rarity, most of “Animals have keener senses, so they know in advance the insects in the Chicago Wilderness region sing the same that a fire is coming,” says Pam Benjamin, a botanist with Karner blues— “I’m just a fire-sensitive arthropod in a fire- the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, “and a lot of the dependent world.” smaller mammals move underground. Just one inch below But Ron Panzer, a conservation biologist with the surface and you can’t even detect a temperature dif - Northeastern Illinois University, hears no sorrow in that ference.” Does this mean that animals never lose their song. While true that individual insects die by the thou - lives in fires? Well okay, no. “In 10 years of burning, I’ve sands, populations of grassland dependent species—even the seen one snake and one frog killed,” says Pam Benjamin. Karner blue—are entirely dependent on burn management. She points out that the occasional snake or mouse found Panzer conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of dead after fires may well have been sick or dead before insect sensitivity to fire. He discovered that roughly half the fire came through. If the fire didn’t get it, some of all insect species he studied were fire negative—meaning predator would have. their populations decline immediately succeeding a burn.

8 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 9

champions prescribed 1945 increased by periodic 1972 fire terminology or poli - Council votes 13 to 1 to burning. “Smokey controlled burning. Illinois Department of cy and advises that pre - resume the process. Now the Bear” Conservation incorpo - scribed and natural fires prescribed burning is 1910 ads appear. 1965 rates controlled burns as be used more often to conducted by all county, 5,000,000 acres of nat - Biswell’s studies show part of its land manage - reduce hazardous fuel state, and federal con - ural forests burn, 1949-51 that giant sequoias ment policy. build-up. servation agencies in the 3,000,000 in Idaho and Prof. Harold Biswell of depend on fire to kill Chicago region. Montana alone, in the the University of the seedlings of com - 1974 1996 —Eugene Bender Big Blowup. 78 fatalities California researches the peting tree species. Illinois Beach State Park DuPage and Cook County reported. use of prescribed burn - begins controlled burns. Forest Preserve Districts ing and almost loses his 1968 impose a moratorium on 1916 job because the School National Park Service 1986 prescribed burning as a US National Park Service of Forestry fears being publishes new policies Indiana Dunes National result of criticism in the is established and associated with pre - recognizing fire as a Lakeshore incorporates press. The DuPage mora - adopts strict fire sup - scribed fire. natural phenomenon. prescribed fire as part of torium is soon lifted. pression policy. its land management 1951-52 1969 program. 1996 1921 Ed Komarek of the pri - Forest Service admits A paper in Science US Forest Service stan - vate Tall Timbers some fire is good in its 1988 reports that the sup - dardizes a policy of Research Station in bulletin Protecting the One-third of pression of wildfires led intensive fire suppres - Florida advocates pre - Forests from Fire. Cook Yellowstone’s 2.2 million to the loss of a third of sion. scribed fire worldwide, County Forest Preserves acres are scorched by the plant species in based on studies made are on record conduct - 248 wildfires that are at Wisconsin prairies over 1943 by the station. ing regular controlled first allowed to burn. the past 50 years. Forest Service Chief Lyle burns as part of land Watts encourages the 1962 management policy. 1989 1997 experimental use of A. L. Shiff’s book, Fire However, all wildfires Report of the US Fire Cook County FPD prescribed burning. and Water , shows that and vandal fires are to Policy Review Committee rescinds a moratorium on Barbara Turner burns her patch of oak woods in Long Grove, where the productivity in southern be extinguished as soon concludes that the pub - prescribed burning after Village secures annual burn permits for pine forests was as possible. lic did not understand its Community Advisory conservation-minded homeowners.

Of the other half, 25 percent were fire-neutral, and 25 per - run, the species that depend on grassland and oak woodland cent actually increased their numbers. The findings were habitats die out completely in the absence of fire. surprising only in that the fire-positive group was so large. Bottom line: sure you lose insects in each fire, maybe . a

m “It probably just means that they’d recovered so fast that by the occasional snake or frog, but that’s a small sacrifice for o h a l k the time we measured them, their populations had actually saving an endangered habitat from destruction. As Ron O

, a s l

u increased,” Panzer says. Panzer argues, what are T

, m

u And this is the reason a few individuals when e s u M for Panzer’s nonchalance “the data suggest that e s a e r c

l about the fates of indi - we’ve lost entire species i G

f o

vidual insects. “If you due to fire suppres - n o i t c

e know anything about sion?” Conversely, the l l o C

e insect fecundity,” says more we expand the h t

m

o Panzer, “you know one native ecosystems by r f

, 4

3 female can literally lay restoring the traditional 1 2 1 .

6 thousands of eggs.” Even fire regimes, the more 7 1 0

,

s if a species lost numbers we’ll discover what a v n a c

originally, says Panzer, Wayne Lampa discov - n o

l i

o “most affected popula - ered after instituting a

” , i r

u tions recover by the burn program at o s s i M

following spring and Waterfall Glen—not r e p p

U every species surveyed only do rare plant

e h t

n recovered completely species come back, but o

, g n

i within two to three animals and insects n r u B years.” Given just a cou - return as well. “For the s f f u l B ple years’ recovery time, Historic paintings. George Catlin left his job as a lawyer in the east to paint animals and insects,” e i r i a r every single insect he explains, “it’s sort of P the Native Americans beyond the frontier—and their prairie habitat. He was “

, n i l species becomes fire like Field of Dreams . If t struck by the variety of fire. Nonchalant animals paid little attention in low a C

e

g neutral. But that’s the you restore it, they will

r fuel areas or on mild days (above) while a raging fire in heavy fuel (page 4) o e G short run. In the long was a force to be reckoned with. come.” —AB

F ALL 1998 9 Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 10

Thinking Like a Seed by Robyn Flakne Illustrated by Sue Wegener eturning home from a ingstars have “parachutes” to facilitate even the better for it, gaining in ger - walk in the Swiss air travel. Maple and ash trees produce mination potential. Buckthorn berries k a

w woods half a century samaras (alias helicopters), single- act as laxatives, speeding their seeds’ o N

R

e R

n ago, George de winged fruits structured to twirl on trip through the digestive tract and e l r a M

Mestral found his descent and keep the seed briefly aloft. limiting damage. : o t o

h clothes and his dog’s Hop hornbeams and others have seeds P coat covered with burs. While yanking surrounded by thin membranes that out the clinging seed capsules, de aid gliding. Some wind-dispersed seeds Mestral grew curious. He popped one are simply light and aerodynamic, like under a microscope and discovered the those of many grasses; some are small hook-like structures that, after much almost to the vanishing point. Orchid experimentation, he mimicked in a seeds could be mistaken for dust. synthetic fabric. George de Mestral WATER. Many plants of wet habi - invented Velcro. tats, such as marsh marigold and Seeds are local miracles: plants as loosestrife, have seeds with corky coats perfect, curled embryos along with that keep them on top of the water for their food supply, snug in protective weeks or months. Sedge seeds fre - coats, equipped with imaginative quently have waxy coats and seedpods transport. They are also internally pro - with air pockets that lend buoyancy. grammed. The embryos of most ANIMALS. George de Mestral, his temperate-zone seeds stay deathly dor - dog, and you share this at least: you all Humans transport valued seeds mant—sometimes for years—until disperse seeds. Fruit and seed adapta - intact, planting them where desired. environmental signals break the spell. tions for clinging to fur or cloth are Other animals might cache seeds and Seeds of the weedy mullein, for vexingly common. Walk through a then not return for them. Or they instance, won’t grow in a crowd. They woodland or prairie in early fall and might eat only a portion of the seed, bide their time in the soil until the spend your evening stripping off tick leaving enough for germination. Ants spot is shaken up by some misfortune, trefoil pods. If you don’t want to partic - are notorious for this. “They carry off then grab the prime real estate before ipate, smooth clothes are the seeds of spring flora like trout lily anyone else can. recom mended. and trillium and eat the ‘ant candy’,” The apple doesn’t fall far from the Animals carry seeds more deliber - says Susanne Masi, research associate tree, but where does the neighborhood ately, too. Birds are renowned for their at the Chicago Botanic Garden, refer - raccoon then drop it? Seeds and fruits fruit and seed consumption, squirrels ring to a fat-rich attachment to the are forever taking advantage of wind, for their acorn habits. Even some rep - seed. Thus do ants incidentally plant water, and the outsides and insides of tiles have a taste for fruit and seeds. the rest. animals. Countless seeds perish on this alimen - The time has come. When you walk WIND. The seeds of dandelions, tary journey but others come out the the woods and grasslands, tune in to milkweed, cottonwoods, and blaz - other end in good shape. They can be the miracle of seeds.

10 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Numbers of seeds per teaspoon: cream false indigo—250; stiff gentian—20,000; Culver's-root—60,000. Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 11

DESIGNER GENES et’s say you have some seed of flower, then carries its pollen to the native species and a perfect nearest like flower. In contrast to Lplace to restore these plants. insect-pollinated species, wind-dis - Let’s say you know what it takes for persed pollen might fertilize either Desmodium canadense the seeds to germinate and grow. Are nearby or distant plants. The seeds SHOWY TICK TREFOIL you ready to begin? themselves also vary in the distance Not so fast, some experts say. You they travel. have the right species, but do you have Most prairie grasses, for instance, the right genes? The genes within rely on wind to arrange their trysts and seeds determine the limits of the adult usher away their offspring. For them, plant’s tolerance to environmental cir - genes will be readily traded with neigh - cumstances. The t olerance limits of boring populations. Plants of specialized individuals determines the resilience habitats like bogs are often more cir - of populations buffeted by environ - cumspect and clannish, preferring to mental change. The population’s keep their pollen and offspring close. collective resilience is the fate of the Most likely, their scattered populations species. Conservationists seek to pre - will have little internal genetic varia - serve each species’ unique system of tion, but each population will be genetic diversity, to walk the line genetically distinct from the one in the between too much inbreeding and too next town, or the next state. much outbreeding. Stern as parents, geneticists lecture Most plant species are distributed about the consequences of plant sex - discontinuously. They grow in patches, ual experimentation. This couple are Asclepias syriaca often widely separated, and sometimes too similar; that pair are too different; COMMON MILKWEED in very different habitats from one it will never work. Poor matches are another. Over the generations, some doomed to gradations of sterility, still - genes will come to predominate in one birth, genetic disease, awkward population and others in the next. problem children. These genes are often the ones that Inbreeding—crosses between close give each population the chops to sur - relatives—is a worry for populations of P h o t o vive the range of weather, disease, soil gregarious plant species that, having :

M a r

y conditions, and other ecological fac - been cornered and boxed into the

A .

R

o tors peculiar to its own spot. Jim modern landscape, suffer an embargo o t / R

o Reinartz, senior scientist and resident on their pollen and seed trade. Marcy o t

R

e biologist at the University of De Mauro, superintendent of planning s o u r c

e Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Field Station, and development with the Forest s tells of white cedar trees growing in Preserve District of Will County, adjacent uplands and wetlands. found that the only lakeside daisies “When their seeds were mixed and left alive in Illinois in the 1980s were sown into both habitats, they germi - so alike that they were biologically nated well only in the habitat from incapable of producing offspring when Desmodium which they were collected,” he notes. crossed together. Marlin Bowles, plant Now and then populations experi - conservation biologist at the Morton TICK TREFOIL ence “gene flow.” Pollen from one Arboretum, discovered that Mead’s hitching a ride… group will fertilize a flower in another, milkweeds in Illinois were in a similar or seed from one group will land and predicament. De Mauro and Bowles grow amidst the other, and the popu - resuscitated the Illinois populations of lation will pass around fresh genes. these species by importing seeds from But how often this happens depends out of state. on how each species manages its Yet outbreeding—crossing plants reproductive affairs. Some plants pri - from distant locations or different marily pollinate themselves, or are habitats—could also cause harm. Dan most frequently pollinated by a close Gustafson, a doctoral candidate at neighbor, as when a bee visits one Southern Illinois University, has

F ALL 1998 11

Fall cov 02 - 12_ Fall cov 02 - 12 12/24/15 10:10 AM Page 12

conducted field and greenhouse exper - Kayri Havens, manager of endan - iments with Indian grass and big gered species research at the Chicago bluestem. “Plants from Kansas per - Botanic Garden, is exploring whether formed differently than plants from inbreeding might explain the low seed Illinois,” he says. “The introduction set that Marlin Bowles observed in of foreign genes (such as those from small populations of the endangered Kansas) could disrupt the genetic eastern white-fringed orchid. She is composition of Illinois populations.” examining whether two species of Aggressive, competitive non-local lobelia with different pollination sys - plants could overrun the natives and tems — the cardinal flower pollinated might later prove unable to handle an by hummingbirds and the great blue Illinois environmental extreme. In lobelia pollinated by bees — show dif - fact, so wary of the potential for out - ferences in the crossing distance at breeding are some land managers that which harmful effects of outbreeding, the Illinois Department of Natural if any, appear. Bowles and Havens Resources is currently removing 16 have jointly investigated the strange acres of cultivated prairie case of the Pitcher’s thistle. Bowles Impatiens capensis grasses in Vermilion County restored this federally endangered JEWELWEED and replanting with natives plant to Illinois Beach State Park, to preserve the integrity of a where it had been extirpated. He used nearby prairie remnant. seeds from the nearest existing sites When plants that are adapted to where the plant was found, in contrasting environments interbreed, Wisconsin and Indiana. By every it is possible for their offspring to be measure, the plants from Indiana have dealt such ill-assorted genes that they fared better. Yet Havens’ genetic Robert Flesvig and Mary Ann Skvara are misfits in their mother’s habitat, analysis show that the Wisconsin separating seed from chaff. their father’s habitat, or any habitat in plants are more closely related to the between. “This can occur at any spa - original Illinois Pitcher’s thistle. tial scale,” says Jim Reinartz. “One When creating seed-collecting hypothetical extreme is crossing policies, agencies concerned with Wisconsin plants with North Carolina ecological restoration must distill SEED plants. The populations are adapted to vats of biological knowledge, theory, very different seasonal rhythms, so the and controversy. Local agencies typi - seeds might not know when to germi - cally stipulate that seed should come FALL nate. Another extreme could occur from sites as ecologically similar to among plants that appear to be in the the restoration site as practicable. hroughout the summer seeds have same population, but that are growing They suggest that when plants are Tdeveloped, ripened, and been col - in subtly different habitats.” introduced to a site, seed should be lected, each type at its own pace, until To navigate these hazards, some collected from more than one now they seem all at once to rush to experts exuberantly recommend that appropriate source. Some also impose the end of the season. We seed collec - you get to know a species’ breeding geographic boundaries such that tors are compelled, like all harvesters, system, population dynamics, and seeds must be collected within to work long hours in shortening days. evolutionary lineages. Is such inti - a 25- or 50-mile radius of the restora - But the work brings pleasure, like the macy with all potential restoration tion site. silken feel of stripping Indian grass targets possible? There are more than Current policy cannot address all seeds into our palms. Like the rasping 2,000 plant species in the Chicago the shadings, cannot account for all rubbing of seed heads back and forth, region. Unveiling all these mysteries the pollination and dispersal habits back and forth, over a cleaning screen. for just one of them will get you a and aberrations, all the genetic Rapt in our own task, we might forget master’s degree, at a minimum. intrigue of plants. But in Chicago that others toil with us, then we At Goose Lake Prairie Nature Wilderness, local seed sources for most glance up and right into the eyes of Preserve near Joliet, Dan Gustafson is species are still abundant and various one another. And smile, knowing we tracing gene flow between Illinois big enough to support both continued share the delicious joy of direct skin bluestem and cultivated big bluestem research and seed collection within contact with wildness past, present, from Nebraska, a population growing the ethical boundaries of present and future. At the end of the day, we from seeds that were planted there in understanding. luxuriate in our fatigue. It is fall, time the 1980s. to gather together those things we cherish. Happy harvesting.

12 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS For use in restoration mixes, the seeds of many legumes must be scratched by sandpaper or they will not germinate. Those of New Jersey tea must be plunged into boiling water. Into the Wild OUR GUIDE TO THE WILD SIDE Bring field guides and binoculars—or just your senses and spirit. These lands are among our best and brightest gems of ancient nature. l e h c a N

m i J

: o t o h P

3 1 COWLES BOG —Porter County, IN

2 ZANDERS WOODS— Cook County

3 LAKE IN THE HILLS FEN —McHenry County 4 1 4 GREENE VALLEY FOREST PRESERVE —DuPage County 2

Maps: Lynda Wallis

FALL 1998 13 Wo rki ng theWilderness

PRAIRIE BURN by Joe Neumann

microphone in front of my face and a 40-pound water- Chuck and I assume our positions by the poles towards the Apack on my back. Every burn is an event, but today a west. Our instructions call for us to wet the telephone poles camera crew from Bill Kurtis’s “New Explorers” television when the fire approaches. As little time as possible must be series is here to record the burn, and we feel we’re making left before the flames arrive for the sun and wind to dry the news as well. poles. A special wetting agent is added to our packs to make Gensburg Markham Prairie south of Chicago is that rarest the water “wetter,” that is, less quick to evaporate. Chuck of entities—a large, high-quality prairie. Our plan calls for and I have two waterpacks apiece, one to wet the poles and burning the center of the site, more than 50 acres. one as a back-up. A first-class burn crew has been assembled, a mix of pro - fessionals and volunteers—though today, no matter what Firebreaks your title, we are all volunteers. We wear hard hats, Nomex n preparation for the burn, the stalks at the base of the suits, and have specialized tools. Nomex is a special flame- Ipoles have been mowed down. The borders of the burn retardant cloth. Two leaders carry drip torches—canisters of area receive a similar treatment. A 10-foot wide mowed strip gasoline and diesel fuel used to spread the fire. Six of us carry encircles the entire burn area: a fire break. Cutting down the backpack pumps to spray water. Others have flappers or swat - stalks that fuel the fire cuts down the height of the flames. ters. These are flat slabs of rubber attached to stout five-foot We will extinguish the flames once they enter this strip. handles and used to smother weaker flames. We also have a Ideally, the wind should be of moderate, steady strength 50-gallon water tank with a 100-foot hose mounted on a and from a definite direction. Today’s wind is predominately pick-up truck. from the west with a slightly southern bent. This wind will Everyone must have an assignment. There will be two push a free-roaming fire to the northeast, so that section teams, one led by Bill Sluis, the steward of nearby Paintbrush must be secured. Prairie; the other led by Marcy De Mauro, superintendent of Starting at the northeast corner of the burn area, Bill’s planning and development with the Will County Forest crew will work its way west, igniting the north side. The Preserve District. flames will be allowed to advance to the south but will be snuffed as they back into the mowed strip to the north. A Prairie Dies Marcy and her team will proceed south igniting the eastern arcy needs two people for a special assignment. A line and then the southern edges of the burn area. The flames Mof telephone poles cuts across the burn area. These Marcy sets will be allowed to burn to the west against the poles must be kept wet, and this assignment will isolate the wind but will be snuffed out to the east. The pick-up truck two who undertake it. Chuck, a burn veteran, volunteers and its water tank is assigned to Marcy’s team since the wind immediately. When no one else seems eager to accept this direction will make the fire along the eastern break the most assignment, I volunteer too. Marcy cross-examines me about difficult one to control. The expressway east of the prairie is my burn experience. I tell her that I have participated in another cause for concern. Not only the flames, but the about 100 burns and have taken the S-190 US Forest Service smoke they create, must be carefully controlled. fire training course. With all the preparations complete, the crew moves to its First Puff of Smoke stations. Marcy’s team covers the east and south sides of the rom my perspective, the crew assembling at the north - prairie. Bill leads his team, with the camera crew in tow, east Feast corner of the burn area appears little larger than along the north end. ants. They huddle for what seems like the longest time.

14 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Finally they disperse and assume their positions. A puff of smoke signals ignition. Now vigorous flames are visible. Marcy’s crew on the east edge of the burn area soon disap - pears from sight behind some subtle slope. But Bill’s crew to the north is fully visible. When a fire acts ornery, it forces you into close contact with it. Heat tugs the skin of your face taut then. But little sign of such a situation is evident today. Bill’s crew is strung out along the line while Bill advances west in an orderly fashion with his drip-torch. He ignites about 20 feet along the burn line, then pauses to allow his team to control the flames before he advances again. Bill and his team, like burn crew cowboys, have this flaming herd of steers moving just the right way. Great bales of smoke rise from the flames, swelling into an appropriately prairie-sized mass, dwarfing the crew below it. Behind me is a gate. Today is Saturday, and the prairie has visitors. The first ones to arrive are a couple who sometimes help weed the prairie. They bring their dogs and are eager to see how the burn is doing. Next comes a man on his way to Kankakee who stops by for a look around. And then there is a mother with two teenage daughters. “Why are you burning the prairie?” the mother asks me in a concerned tone as her two anxious-eyed daughters look on. I give her the short course. “Because the prairie Author Joe Neumann, after the fire. For another photo of this burn, likes to be burned.” see page 32. Slowly and carefully, the burn teams make progress. Marcy’s group completes the eastern fire break and begins the southern one. The other team has progressed halfway Fire Let Loose along the northern border of the burn area. he fire is let loose. Driven by the full force of the A broad “black zone” now exists at the edges of the burn Twind, the flames barrel by the poles, and then blast area. A black zone would be the safest place to stand if you off. Picture a Michael Jordan slam-dunk. In a flash the were ever caught in a fire. All the fuel there has already flames vanish into dense billows of smoke. Red and been incinerated. Reaching such an area, a fire can do yellow tint this cloud’s edges while orange-brown packs its nothing but die. The flames set by the teams have all been interior. tailored so that this black zone grows ever broader and There is little time to gawk at the sight. For all the main more encompassing. The more progress the flames make, fire’s ferociousness, a broad black zone corrals it. But the the more they are contained. backfire still working its way west needs to be extinguished. The burn teams are busy constructing a cage for the fire, Backing against the wind, with only the stubble of the and Marcy approaches at the head of a procession of burn mowed strip to fuel it, this fire is no match for the entire team, pick-up truck, and camera crew. They are close crew. We snuff it with ease. now…let them get a little closer. A little closer still. Time to In the wake of the fire, everything is charred—except for soak those poles. the poles. The Potawatomi word for prairie translates as Once each pole is wet all the way around, I rush on to the “burnt-over bare ground.” This feature—not the vastness next one. The water sloshing about in the pack throws off nor the luxurious growth nor the great herds of bison—is my strides. the trait that Native Americans most associated with Thanks to a cooperative wind, the entire north burn team prairie. This burnt-over bare ground does not look like has time to help protect the poles. Gary and his waterpack much now, but as sure as spring, the sun will warm this help Chuck. Steve rakes away the mowed stalks at the base exposed soil and bring forth a bounty of blooms. of the poles. Bill ignites the areas about the poles so that each will be protected from the main fire by its own black zone. We are being waved out of the way now. The main fire Joe Neumann has volunteered to restore native habitats, closes in on us. I give a pole a last squirt and then dart back mainly in the Palos area of Cook County, since 1990. He also to the safety of the firebreak. serves as steward of the Ashburn Prairie in Marquette Park.

F ALL 1998 15 COWLES BOG — Porter County, IN

W ORK P ARTIES t’s a misnomer: there’s that visitors would have to brush after more than 30 COOK: no bog at Cowles Bog. traverse to reach it. But you years of fire suppression. In Bluff Spring Fen: INamed in honor of may catch glimpses of it recent years the Park First and third Saturday of every Henry Cowles, the University from the three-mile trail Service has begun conduct - month, 9 a.m. of Chicago professor whose that circles the marsh. From ing prescribed burns again, Take Rte. 20 or 25 to southeast side studies of plant succession the southern leg, look and the dunes are slowly of Elgin. Turn onto Bluff City Blvd. among the Indiana Dunes across the marsh for a stand being restored to native and head for the main entrance of helped develop ecology as of conifers. The Park Service savanna. the Bluff City Cemetery (east of Rte. a science, Cowles Bog is plans to build markers along The spur continues past 25). Enter the cemetery, and follow actually a fen—a related the trail to make the fen interdunal ponds and over the green oak tree signs to the small and equally unique wetland easy to identify. the front dunes. After a parking lot with the split rail fence. community. But the area The Cowles Bog area steep climb, the trail drops Contact Mel Manner: (847) 464-4426. was misnamed years ago, offers hikers a view of to the beach. Swimming is and the name stuck. pristine beach habitat, allowed here, though not Swallow Cliff: Cowles Bog, part of the black oak savanna, and a officially encouraged, as no Nov 29 and Dec 27, 1 p.m.; Dec 5, Indiana Dunes National lowland forest of red maple lifeguards are on duty. 9 a.m. Park at Cherry Hill parking lot Lakeshore, is a remnant of and yellow birch. Starting The wetlands of Cowles on west side of 104th Ave., 1/2 mile the marsh system that once near the guardhouse at the Bog are home to a variety south of Rte. 83. Contact John stretched from where the northeastern part of the of salamanders and other O'Lear: (815) 838-2320. city of Gary is today all the site, the trail passes herps; a large chorus of Kloempken Prairie: way to Michigan City. Most through a marshy area and frogs croaks all spring and Nov 15, 22, Dec 6, 20, 9 a.m. of these wetlands were filled over a boardwalk. This is summer. The area’s many Meet at Oakton Community College, in years ago for the massive the red maple forest, with habitats attract a great Parking lot C, College Dr., Des Plaines. industries established in damp-loving yellow and variety of birds, including Contact Bob Hostettler: northern Indiana. But sev - paper birches, trees rare in Virginia rails, green and (847) 679-2170. eral spectacular sites— the Chicago region. Many great blue herons, Eastern including Cowles Bog—have cinnamon ferns also grow wood-pewees, and several Poplar Creek: been preserved and are now here. The trail occasionally species of hawks. Fall and Nov 22, 28, Dec 6, 12, 19, 26, Jan 3, administered by the National passes white and red pines, spring migrations bring an 9, 17 9 a.m. Park Service. markers of the area’s past. even wider variety. Located on west side of Rte. 59, just The core of the Cowles Pines were once common in Autumn is an especially north of Rte. 8 (Golf Rd). Park across Bog area is a marsh sur - this area, before almost dramatic time of year, as from the pavilion. Contact Jill rounding a small fen. There every one was logged. Along the thick stands of trees Flexman: (847) 836-7443. a stand of tamaracks and higher, sandier ground, the turn bright colors. If your Deer Grove: white pines grows on a trail passes through a timing is right, you may First Saturday and third Sunday of floating mat of peat moss. healthy oak savanna. get a glimpse of the fen’s every month, 9 a.m. Meet at Grove 5 A constant flow of lime-rich A spur off the loop trail tamaracks cloaked in bright in Deer Grove West. Use the Quentin water from springs beneath leads over the back dunes, yellow. Rd. entrance on the west side of the mat makes this a fen dominated by black oak. Quentin Rd., midway between rather than a bog. Once a savanna, the area DIRECTIONS Dundee Rd. and Lake-Cook Rd. Stay The fen itself is off-limits became overgrown with Take I-94 east into Indiana. to the right all the way in on the to the public, because of its Exit at US 20; head east service road; meet at the start of sensitivity and the about 1.5 miles to the the last parking area on the right. deep muck N intersection with Mineral Contact Dale Shields: Springs Rd. Turn north

(847) 634-0824. gan (left). Go straight at the chi Mi intersection with Dunes ake L Hwy; just over the RR tracks is the first of two parking areas for Cowles d

Co a

o Bog. The second is far - wl es R B og s ther north, to the right Tr g a n il i of the Dune Acres r p S

entrance station. Bikes l a r

e are not allowed on the

n . 12 i Rt trails. M — Chris Larson Bethlehem Steel Park Headquarters Oak Hill Road

16 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS ZANDERS WOODS — Cook County

W ORK P ARTIES n the 1860s, a Dutch terfly weed’s bright orange caused by occasional off- settler named Zanders flowers are a common road vehicles, bicycles, and COOK: Ihomesteaded in the sight most years. Several more frequent harm to rare Zanders Woods: southern reaches of Cook species of lupines, gen - plants caused by hungry Dec 5, Jan 23, 9 a.m. County. Long before that, tians, and blazing stars deer. Contact Joe & Marlene Nowak: the area formed the shore - grow here. So does the Hiking is the only (708) 333-3642 or Paul Strand: line of ancient Lake fascinating Indian pipe, allowed activity since the (708) 868-0606 before 6 p.m. Chicago. The sandy soil left a plant with no chlorophyll site is a state nature pre - behind when the lake that gets its nourishment serve. An access road that Somme Woods: retreated is the perfect through a parasitic rela - runs south from Thornton- Nov 22, 9 a.m. Enter preserve on habitat for a stunning vari - tionship with tree roots. Lansing Road is gated and north side of Dundee Rd., just east ety of plants, and the site Zanders Woods is also a closed to cars, but open to of Waukegan Rd. Contact North is now known as Zanders fern lover’s delight, includ - hikers. Several trails lead Branch Restoration Project hotline: Woods Forest Preserve. ing cinnamon, ostrich, from this road into the (773) 878-3877. The site, about 440 acres and royal ferns. Many of woods and wetlands. North Park Village Nature overall, is evenly split these are typically found Center: between woodlands and only in the sandy soils of DIRECTIONS Nov 15, 18, 22, 25, Dec 2, 5, 9, 13, wetlands, including northern pine forests. Ferns Take I-94/Dan Ryan south 16, 20, 30, Jan 6, 9, 9 a.m. marshes and sedge mead - are not common in the to the Calumet Expressway Located at 5801 North Pulaski, 1 1/2 ows in the low-lying areas. Chicago region, except in (I-94). Head east on 80/94 blocks south of Peterson. Follow A recent survey found a this area and closer to the (Tri-state Tollway) briefly signs to nature center. remarkable 139 native Indiana Dunes. before exiting southbound Contact Wayne Svoboda: species growing here. Several other forest on Torrence Ave. After half (847) 675-3622. Black and white oaks preserves are adjacent or a mile, turn west (right) on dominate the forest; the nearby; this concentration Thornton-Lansing Rd. After KANE: site is noteworthy for a of natural areas brings an 1.5 miles, cross an express - Helm Woods: large number of sassafras excellent variety of birds to way; just past this is an Third Saturday of every month, 9 a.m. trees, a tree more com - Zanders, particularly during entrance to Wampum Lake Located on Helm Rd., east of Rte. 25 monly found in the South the breeding season. Scarlet Forest Preserve, on the in Carpentersville. Contact Donna and East. Also uncommon tanagers, oven birds, and right. Park here and walk Veeneman: (847) 428-3475. in the Chicago area, yet wood thrushes are just a across Thornton-Lansing Rd. Campton Hills Park: well-represented here, are few of the many species to Zanders Woods. First Saturday of every month, 9 a.m. black gum trees. The wide noted here. It’s also a — Chris Larson From St. Charles, go west on Rte. 64 variety of trees puts on a favorite stop for warblers one mile past Randall Rd., and turn spectacular show of colors during migration. left at Campton Hills Rd.; continue in the fall. Despite the lack of recent past Peck Rd. Use It’s been many years burns, experts still consider second entrance since the woodlands were Zanders a very healthy site, to Campton Hills burned. As a result, they’ve though not immune to the Park become rather dense. Wet problems that many pre - on left. Call weather nixed plans to serves face, including ad Ro (630) 513-3338. ing burn portions of the area damage ans n–L last spring, but the Forest nto hor T 4

Preserve District 9 3 - hopes to I conduct a prescribed N burn next spring if the weather coop - erates. The entire site y was dedicated as a w s s

a state nature e r p preserve in 1965 x E

t

(it’s also known as T e horn cree m Thornton-Lansing Road k R u oad l a

Nature Preserve). Many rare C and showy plants can be found throughout. The but -

183rd Street

F ALL 1998 17 LAKE IN THE HILLS FEN — McHenry County

W ORK P ARTIES welve thousand years clay. Choosing the path of threatened and endangered MCHENRY: ago, the southeast least resistance, the water plant species such as the Lake-in-the-Hills Fen: Tcorner of McHenry travels horizontally, absorb - false asphodel. The fen is Every Saturday, 9 a.m. County was covered by an ing minerals and alkalinity also home to the state’s Contact Al Wilson: (847) 658-0024. ice sheet roughly 5,000 from the gravel. Within the smallest dragonfly, the tiny feet thick. Some tonnage! preserve are several places bluebell, found at only one Sterne's Woods: The rich and varied soils where the clay layer is other site in Illinois. Nov 28, Dec 5, 9 a.m.; every and unique topography left exposed and the water is Lake-in-the-Hills also har - Wednesday, 2 p.m. Located at 330 by the retreating glaciers able to “seep” out. Unlike bors prairies and gravel North Main St. in Crystal Lake. made the area ripe for the single-source springs, seep hills. On the south side of Contact Jim Wigman: (815) 337-3431 evolution of tremendous water exits the ground all the preserve, you’ll see a biodiversity. One jewel of along the line of the berm-like hill known as an LAKE: the realm is Lake-in-the- exposed clay. When the “esker.” Its north and south Buffalo Grove Prairie: Hills Fen, 240 acres of rare exposed clay layer lies up a exposures harbor many spe - Dec 13, Jan 10, 9 a.m. wild nature, home to seeps, hillside or near the top of a cial plants such as Hills’ Take Lake-Cook Rd. to Hastings Rd. hanging fens, and 404 hill, the emerging water thistle, prairie smoke, prairie (first street west of the RR overpass species of plants. Purchased from the seep runs down - gentian, and leadplant. and about one mile west of the by a consortium of organi - hill. These geological fea - Groups of volunteers have Milwaukee Rd. overpass). Turn north zations and government tures are called “hanging been working for many years on Hastings into the second parking agencies and managed by fens,” designating a wetland to clear brush and inventory lot on the right (second entrance on the McHenry County Conser- on a slope. Lake-in-the-Hills the plant and animal species the right past the retention pond). vation District, the land was has nine seep locations and here. Park at the east end of the lot near dedicated as a state nature eight of them include hang - Lake-in-the-Hills Fen is the prairie. Contact Bev Hansen: preserve in 1990. Recently, ing fens. There are only 26 open year-round during (847) 272-6211. the Conservation District acres of hanging fens in the daylight hours. There are Ryerson Conservation Area: purchased 131 adjoining nation and Lake-in-the-Hills 1.25 miles of mown trails, Nov 28, Jan 23, 9 a.m. acres which will serve as an has approximately four of and guided nature walks are Located one mile south of Rte. 22 important buffer and habitat them. Among the rare bio - conducted at 2 p.m. the on the west side of Riverwoods Rd. extension. logical communities found second Sunday of the month Contact Joan Palinscar: Come here to learn about at this site are graminoid (May—October). Don’t miss (847) 948-0205. fens and seeps. Large gravel fen, calcareous floating the observation deck on an deposits left by the glaciers mat, low shrub fen, calcare - adjacent hillside, outfitted allow rain water to perco - ous seep, dry gravel prairie, with a descriptive plaque late down until it reaches a and sedge marsh. and telescope by local less permeable layer, usually Fen water is alkaline benefactor, Joan Larsen. (unlike a bog, which has To arrange a guided walk acidic water) and is heavily for private groups, including To Crystal Lake Airport Crystal laden with minerals. The for hearing- or visually- Lake water stays a constant impaired, call stewards Alan 50 °F, having traveled and Barbara Wilson at N through the ground, (847) 658-0024 or the P y o so it continues to McHenry County tt R o flow year-round. Conservation District a d Not surprisingly, (815) 678-4431. this rare geo - logical DIRECTIONS: ecosystem From Algonquin at the E N T R harbors junction of Rte. 31 and A N C many of Huntley-Algonquin Rd. (Rte. E the 62), travel west on Rte. 62 site’s for one mile to Pyott Rd. 16 Head north on Pyott Rd. for Barbara 1.5 miles to the entrance of Key Park Barbara Key Park west of Pyott. Park here. A trailhead provides access to the nature preserve to the west Observation Deck of the parking lot. — Alan and Barbara Wilson To Lake-In- The-Hills

Sanitary District

18 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS GREENE VALLEY FOREST PRESERVE — DuPage County

W ORK P ARTIES “ he diversity of Greene Services. a pleasing vista as the area Valley is what makes The trails and views will makes its slow transition DUPAGE: Tit special, ” says Elaine be even more appealing back to a healthy savanna. West Chicago Prairie: Turski, who has lived adja - when the plantings begin Trailhead parking has Nov 22, Dec 5, 9 a.m. cent to this DuPage County on the hillside. Greene been improved to a large Turn west on Hawthorn Lane from forest preserve since 1976. Valley will be the site of paved lot with water avail - Rte. 59 and turn south onto At 1,500 acres, Greene various test plots to ascer - able. Horseback riders in Industrial Dr. Meet at the parking lot Valley is a relatively large, tain what types of native particular will be pleased to on the east side of Industrial Dr. though little-used, preserve. plants and trees will grow in learn that the parking lot between Downs and Western. Contact Those who know it con - an open area subject to the has been sealed with the Mel Hoff: (630) 665-5183. sider it a recreational gem constant winds found at good non-slip surface that Springbrook Prairie: in the rough. Eight miles of that height. This is the first has been used at the Nov 21, Dec 12, 9 a.m. mixed crushed stone and plant and tree study of its Waterfall Glen trailhead. Park at model airplane field lot south turf trails loop in and out of type and should, over the of 75th St. on Naperville/Plainfield open areas and majestic oak next 5-10 years and longer, DIRECTIONS: Rd. Contact Joe Suchecki: woods and will eventually produce results that will Greene Valley is located (630) 369-5570. extend to the east side of improve the habitat of other near the intersection of the DuPage River. Hikers reclaimed areas. Long term, Rte. 53 and 75th St. in WILL: and horseback riders may this hill should eventually Woodridge, IL. The trailhead Hickory Creek Barrens come upon fox, coyotes, become an open savanna is on Greene Rd., just west Nov 21, 9 a.m. and the usual raccoons, blending into a forest. of Rte. 53 on 75th St. Contact Phyllis Schulte: deer, and possum. At the northern end of Signs clearly mark the way (708) 479-1097. Along with its oak groves, Greene Valley, visitors will from that intersection. Greene Valley has large find large picnic shelters — Kandee Haertel Old Plank Road Trail: open grasslands that pro - and associated amenities. Dec 5, 12, 9 a.m. vide habitat for birds such The Thunderbird Youth Camp Contact Bud Steffan: (815) 485-0915. as savanna sparrows and on the south end of the bobolinks. Be on the look - property has always been an out for herons and egrets actively used campground. d along the river and associ - The old farm buildings on Roa bson ated wetland areas and for Hobson Rd. are the site of Ho hawks soaring along the Indian and pioneer festivals. thermals. Note the progress of the N Greene In 1974, the Forest District’s prairie reconstruc - Farm Preserve District developed a tion from the long driveway 200-acre portion along the leading to trailhead as well southern end of the property as along the trail. Several into a sanitary landfill. The years ago the District landfill was closed in 1997 planted white, red, and bur 75th St. and the District has begun oak trees along this drive to to redevelop the site for expand the oak groves. To recreation. keep the area attractive Now 190 feet tall, the hill while these very young is the second highest point trees grow to maturity over in DuPage County and one the next several decades, a

79th St. 3 5 of the highest in the state. colorful mix of native u

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Though the summit is not forbs— d v R i rd R

yet open to the public, the yellow and purple i e b r g

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hill itself will be opened for coneflower, d P n u u

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special events as early as monarda, T

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Trailhead .

spring of 1999 when the black-eyed n

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roads leading to the top Susan, asters, e

n t . e s will be re-graded for auto - prairie dock, d e a r R E

G i

mobiles. “We are doing what rattlesnake l r h

we promised we would do. master, and e It took us a little longer, goldenrod— W but it is happening,” stated was planted. Joe Benedict, the District’s These native Director of Environmental plants provide 87th St.

3 5 u

F ALL 1998 19 Natural Events CALENDAR Here’s what’s debuting on nature’s stage in Chicago Wilderness by Jack MacRae

F ALL INTO W INTER

Northern Leopard Frogs accumulate on the soil. Here weather. Historically, hibernac - southern wanderings. On gray Like children gathering on the air temperatures often ula were often located in cracks winter days they can sometimes the school yard for recess, large reach below zero and the bod - and fissures of rocky bluffs and be seen sitting atop sand dunes numbers of northern leopard ies of the spring peepers actu - ravines. In Chicago Wilderness, and breakwaters along the Lake frogs have congregated in the ally freeze, with ice crystals I have seen an old, cracked Michigan shore line. sedge meadows by their winter forming inside them. Due to a railroad trestle used by many One December day, several home—under water. Soon they natural anti-freeze made of glu - garter and fox snakes for their years ago during the Education will sink into the water for the cose however, the vital fluids winter home. With so many of Staff Christmas Party at the final time this year, not emerg - within their cells don't freeze our natural geographic features Field Museum, a snowy owl was ing until the warm days of and peepers survive the destroyed, we are fortunate spotted sitting on the roof, spring. Northern leopard frogs Chicago Wilderness winter. that artificial structures have outside a third floor storage hibernate in the icy water, bur - value as a winter home to our room. The following year, dur - rowing under submerged logs Samantha's Cousin? cold-blooded friends. ing the same holiday function, and rocks at the muddy bottom Witch hazel may sound like a a group of us ventured back to of the pond. They don't breath character on “Bewitched,” but Stone Flies the same storage closet and through their lungs underwater, it is really an attractive tree I'm a big fan of hot, humid peeked out the window. Sure but rather absorb oxygen native to the understory of our summer weather but can appre - enough, this beautiful bird of directly through their skin. wooded areas. Blooming at this ciate the cold temperatures for prey was there again, this time While the water is certainly time of year, later than most two reasons. First, beer stays sitting only a few feet from the cold—below 40°F—the deeper flowering shrubs of the Chicago cold on my back porch. window, looking at us with his water does not freeze solid. Wilderness, this short tree pro - Second, there are fewer biting vivid yellow eyes. Some things This is good news for these duces slender, bright yellow bugs. Amazingly, not all insects you never forget. amphibians who can survive blossoms. These faintly fragrant disappear during the cold being chilled to 30°F but flowers are interesting in that months of late autumn and Christmas Bird Count perish before the temperature they are produced only after early winter. The common stone This is the 99th year of a reaches 28°F. the tree's toothed leaves have fly is actually quite active at truly wonderful event that turned from green to yellow this time of year. Living in occurs during our holiday sea - Turtles On The Rocks and fallen to the ground. small streams, the larval stage son. Every year since 1900, Remember those baby snap - Another distinctive quality of of the stone fly is feeding on groups of bird watchers have ping turtles we've been follow - the witch hazel is that its fruit water plants and growing larger. fanned out across the continent ing the last few issues of takes a full year to ripen. Its An important part of a freshwa - to inventory the local avian Chicago WILDERNESS Magazine ? small brown pods violently ter fish's diet, these nymphs fauna. Started in 1900 by The youngsters are now starting eject last year's shiny, black are intolerant of polluted or Frank Chapman, long-time their first winter when they seeds 20 to 30 feet away. poorly oxygenated water and Curator of Ornithology at the face the appealing notion of Named by early American thus are indications of good American Museum of Natural crawling along the muddy bot - settlers because it resembled water quality. Thousands of History, the Christmas Bird tom and breathing through the hazel tree native to Europe, these creatures have benefited Count was organized as a their butts. What fun! the witch hazel does not refer from people working to restore protest against the longstand - Amazingly, many snappers to witchcraft or sorcery but and stabilize the banks of the ing holiday tradition in which remain active despite the frigid probably comes from the old many streams that criss-cross organized teams would compete water. Large snapping turtles English word meaning "to the Chicago Wilderness. to see who could slaughter the have been found frozen solid bend." The branches of the most birds in one day. within a block of ice, fully con - Witch hazel were made into White Owls Unbelievable. scious with eyes blinking. divining rods, used for water When I run out of a food sta - The Chicago area has multiple witching, an archaic term for ple, say chips and salsa, I go to opportunities for participating Frog Popsicles the practice of locating water the local grocer or convenience in this year's Christmas Bird Spring peepers are one of the and minerals below the ground store. When snowy owls start to Count, with programs occurring few animals that are able to by means of bending sticks. run out of food, they head from mid-December through survive prolonged exposure to south. Due to periodic fluctua - early January. Some of the sites sub-freezing temperatures. Snake Hibernacula tions of the rodent populations, for the count include Indiana Rather than finding a (relative - Hibernaculum is an obscure these large white predators Dunes, urban Chicago, FermiLab, ly) warm winter home on land word indicating the location occasionally expand their terri - and Waukegan. The best place below the frost line, or in water where an animal hibernates. tory in search of food. Usually to learn additional sites and under the frozen ice, spring This is the time of the year inhabiting the open plains of details about this valuable peepers spend the winter on when our local reptiles are the treeless tundra, snowy owls event is by contacting the the surface of the forest floor, seeking a hibernaculum in are often spotted in the Chicago Audubon Society at covered by the leaves that which to sleep through the cold Chicago Wilderness during these (773) 539-6793.

20 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Meet your neighbors P h o t o :

B . K .

W h e e l e r / A c a d e m y

o f

N a t u r a l

S c i e n c e s ,

P h i l a d e l p h i a Broad-winged Hawk: Ride the autumn thermals a i h he flight begins in September. These hawks are coming from their This clay-capped landfill rises 150 feet p l e d a l First one, then two, then 10 or 20 northern breeding grounds in above the Blackwell Forest Preserve, 30 i h T P

, s and soon, a kettle of 200 broad- Michigan and Canada. Some also miles west of downtown Chicago. The e c n e i c winged hawks ( Buteo platypterus ) ply nested right here in the Chicago hawks funnel in between the DuPage S l a r u the sky. They circle and ride the ther - Wilderness area. For example, birders River on the west and the moraine t a N f o mals created by hot air rising over observed two young broad-winged ridges east. Nearly 1,000 broad-winged y m e

d sun-warmed patches of land. Rising as hawks in a nest in south Cook County hawks soared in kettles over Mt. Hoy a c A /

h high as they can on one thermal, they in 1995. The same year, a plant sur - one recent September day. t i m S

. then glide from the top of the air col - veyor heard the shrieking two-syllable Illinois Beach State Park along S . N

:

o umn to the base of another, rising courtship cry of the broad-winged hawk Lake Michigan in Lake County and t o h P again into another whirl of southward all summer at Ryerson Woods in Lake Glacial Park in McHenry County are movement. County. Broad-winged hawk nests have two other good spots for watching Though solitary nesters, broad- also been discovered within the past 10 broad-winged hawks during migration. winged hawks prefer a company of years in Will, DuPage, and McHenry Birders find the highest point at these hundreds during migration. And Counties. parks where they sit for several hours humans who look to the sky from mid- This uncommon Illinois breeder watching the sky. to-late September can witness one of will only nest in heavily wooded The broad-winged hawk flight nature’s most fascinating displays. An areas. During courtship, the pair soars reaches its peak the last week in average of some 4,000 broad-wings and swoops above the woodlands. September. Migrating hawks typically migrate through Chicago Wilderness Then a small stick nest is built in the fly during the mid-morning hours, and each fall, in groups of hundreds or more. crotch of a tree. strong winds encourage their flights. Lake Michigan, the Des Plaines The female lays two to four eggs, Local birding groups sponsor free River, and other bodies of water serve then incubates them for 31 days. hawk watching outings this time of as navigational tools for these small, Mammals, primarily chipmunks, as year. Call an area nature center to find broad-winged birds of prey with dark well as shrews, voles, frogs, lizards, and out if a hawk watch is scheduled near brown backs, light barred breasts, and young birds serve as broad-winged you. Or just pick a day with strong black and white tail bands. food in summer. When the cool winds winds and bring your lawn chair and a Glacial remnants such as ridges and come, the hawks take wing and fly as thermos of liquid warmth up to one of moraines at areas such as the far south as Brazil where they dine on the mentioned areas or any high point Blackwell Forest Preserve in DuPage insects, lizards, and frogs. near a body of water. Then wait for County and Glacial Park in McHenry One of the premiere spots for nature’s spectacular free show to begin. County help create updrafts that lift watching broad-wings during fall migra - the broad-wings up to the thermals. tion is at Mt. Hoy in DuPage County. —Sheryl De Vore

F ALL 1998 21 Meet your neighbors Joan Meersman: Collector of Seeds P h o t o :

R i c h a r d

J a c o b s / R o o t

R e s o u r c

Cooper’s Hawk e s

HAWK NOTES: On an October day when west or P h

northwesterly winds blow following o t o :

K

an Arctic cold front, birders come to i m

K a

Illinois Beach State Park to watch r p e l e s

hawks. On the right days, birders / L i f e

might catalog up to 14 species of T h r o u g

hawks here including, sharp-shinned h

t h e

hawk, Cooper’s hawk, goshawk, L e n merlin, peregrine falcon, American s kestrel, broad-winged hawk, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk and, on f it’s Wednesday and it’s fall, they’re ripe. Meersman says they occasion, Swainson’s hawk, golden Ichances are Joan Meersman is off watch plants “week by week so we’re eagle, bald eagle, northern harrier, seed collecting. Meersman and her sure to be there when they’re ready.” and osprey. able troop of volunteers collect seeds Or, if less confident they’ll be in the To watch for the hawks, park at the from rare or important plants along right place at the right time, they Interpretive Center, then walk east to the North Branch of the Chicago have been known to ripen the seed in the lake over a boardwalk. Find the River for ultimate dispersal in appro - a paper bag, “just close the top and highest point to stand on the shore, or priate forest preserve areas to restore catch the seed!” walk south to the wooden tower where precious remnants of native habitat It’s not all work. There are parties, you can get an even better view. in the region. It’s all part of an imag - too. Processing parties. Several times On Sept. 18, 1992 , birder inative partners hip involving the in the summer, and once in the fall, Allen H. Siegle reported 14,000 Chicago Botanic Garden, Forest the volunteers assemble to help pre - broad- winged hawks moving through Preserve District of Cook County, pare the seeds for planting (see p. 12). southern Lake County, including Heller and a volun teer group, the North Then the seeds are exchanged with Nature Center in Highland Park. Branch Restoration Project. Experts other FPD volunteers for inclusion in On October 15, 1995 , birders supply lists of needed seeds—such as the planting mixes. Meersman notes observed a record number of hawks dropseed grass, wood anemone, that the rest of the plant material— flying over Illinois Beach State Park. meadow rue, and toothwort—and seed hulls, husks, grass stems, and These included 9 merlins, 25 turkey Meersman’s devoted group goes off branches—is returned to the forest vultures, 1 osprey, 3 bald eagles, 105 in search of them. Early in the sea - preserve ecosystem, too. It’s a neat northern harriers, 531 sharp-shinned son, the volunteers work in the process, and clearly a labor of love. hawks, 25 Cooper’s hawks, 1 woods. As the season progresses, Meersman says there are always sur - northern goshawk, 1 red-shouldered they spread out to the woods’ edge, prises—assorted insects, mammals, and hawk, and 301 red-tailed hawks. An and finally into the prairie—follow - birds that enliven the collecting trips. average of between 2,000 and 6,000 ing the ripening seed. One time at Wayside Prairie in hawks fly over Mt. Hoy near the The seeds of some plants are Morton Grove, she and another volun - Blackwell Forest Preserve in DuPage trickier to find and collect than teer were looking for a particular plant County each fall. Birders send reports others. Wild geranium, for instance, when they noticed what looked like a to the Hawk Migration Association of has a trigger mechanism; its seeds lit - large cocoon. As they edged closer, the North America. erally explode off the plant when “cocoon” revealed itself to be a little

22 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Some seeds will germinate only in light—others only in the dark. brown bat, which, frightened, flew Blue blossom medicine away right over their heads. Another Prairie Gentian: time, the volunteers flushed out three young woodcocks, which scampered walk in late fall through the out around their feet. A bronzed prairie may bring a spe - Mee rsman also helps coordinate a cial delight if you are lucky. There at sort of foster parent program for your feet you may spot bits of blue sky seedlings. She obtains young plants, fallen among the wine-red little grown at the Botanic Garden from bluestem and browning dock. the rare seed she’s collected, and Gentiana puberulenta , the prairie gen - distributes them among a list of vol - tian, blooms from August to October unteers who adopt the plants into and can survive nightime tempera -

their own yards. Ultimately, the vol - tures of 12 F. P ° h o t o unteers harvest the seeds, return those Gentians are named for King :

C a r o l to Meersman, and she incorporates Gentius of Illyria (northwest of F r e e them into the North Branch restora - ancient Greece) who supposedly dis - m a tion seed mixes. covered the medicinal properties of n How did this remarkable woman, gentians in the old world. Native peo - Gentians, as a group, are not espe - now 68 and grandmother of 17, learn ples in the new world also knew these cially common although in proper all this? “I’m strictly a rank amateur properties. Prairie gentian is called habitats large populations may occur. who loves getting more knowledge,” “Pezhuta-zi” by the Dakota people, Fringed and stiff gentians are biennial she explains. Meersman calls the out - which means yellow medicine, a refer - so their flowering is erratic and incon - doors her classroom, and credits ence to the color of the roots used to sistent. Prairie gentians, however, are var ious enthusiastic naturalists who make tonics to help digestion. The perennial and grow only in the deep took the time to teach her some of Winnebago call it “Makan chahiwi- soils of mesic or dry prairies. Since what they knew. Roughly 10 years ago, cho” which means blue blossom these plants and their habitats are rare with no particular plant background of medicine. in the Chicago Wilderness, it is her own, she met Laurel Ross while on There are seven gentians native to important to protect them and try to a bird walk at Chicago’s North Park the Chicago region. Prairie gentian increase gentian populations in Village Nature Center. This led to vol - has the largest flowers and the restoration areas by seed dispersal and unteering at the Nature Center and to deepest, richest color. It grows 8 to 20 nursery-grown plants. accompanying Ross (who then had inches tall in dry to mesic prairies. Gentians are creatures of the sun - the North Branch volunteer responsi - Six different species of bumblebees shine. They close their flowers at bilities Meersman has today) on seed have been observed pollinating prairie night or when it is cloudy by an intri - collecting trips. In this way Meersman gentians, and the larva of two moths cate, spiral folding which is a wonder came to know native plants—l earning are known to feed on them as well. to behold. Bumblebees and butterflies them “backwards,” as she says, first One is a tiny 1/8 to 1/4 inch long often sleep folded in the flowers on recognizing plants when they had green caterpillar with rusty chevrons cold nights. already flowered and were in seed. and the other is a black and gray So lovely are these flowers and so When Ross was unable to continue banded wooly bear type. Tiny winged rich their color that many have been the seed collecting due to professional seeds develop in the two-parted cap - moved to capture them in verse, commitments, Meersman took over. sule and are spread by the wind in late including these below by poet William Meersman notes that the seed col - October and November. Cullen Bryant. lecting projects have sharpened her To propagate gentians, sow their senses. She says that the more time seeds immediately in the prairie under Thou waitest long, and com’st alone she spends in the wild, the more she the shaded edges of other plants like When woods are bare and notices details she never would have little bluestem or June grass. They can birds have flown, seen before. An inspiration for all also be sown in raised beds of rich, And frosts and shortening who want to get involved but are moist soil, mulched with some curled, days portend reluctant due to lack of technical dry oak leaves or evergreen boughs The aged year is near his end. knowledge, she enthuses, “you have and covered with mesh netting. They Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye got to just walk out, get in the middle germinate when March nights reach Look through its fringes to the sky, of it, open your eyes, and you see mar - 35 ° to 40 ° F and days are warmer. Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall velous things.” Mist them through the netting and A flower from its cerulean wall. transplant the seedlings out during — Andrea Friederici Ross their third year. — Patricia K. Armstrong

F ALL 1998 23 The strange case of the LighTning STRikeS Determine the patch that the lightning hits by a random number (chosen from the hat) between 1 and 25. As you iden - tify a different random patch in each of VAniShing the two woodlands at the top of the page, mark it with an orange “x” without obscuring the color indicating the original condition of the patch. Here’s how to tell OhiAs gamek dem onWstrates tOhe dynaOmic naDture ofS the rare open oak woods. whether the fire will spread to adjoining If they burn too often and too intensely, they become savannas or, in patches (the 4 patches on each side of Ttime, prairies. If they don’t burn enough, they become so dense that the patch that the lightning hits): the oaks and their companion species can’t reproduce. In either of those cases, the animals and plants of the oak woods die out. This game assumes 1. All PRAIRIE (yellow) and HEALTHY that for 10 years lightning hits the same patch in the woodland every year and WOODLAND (green) patches will burn that conditions in the woods, as a result of the fires, only change once every readily; thus draw an orange circle 10 years. around each yellow or green dot in a The grids represent two areas of ancient woods divided into 25 sampling square that is connected across 1 of its 4 patches. The flying squirrels, the red-headed woodpeckers, the tiger salaman - ders, and the creamy wild pea still thrive. But decreased fire in recent decades sides with any burned patch, starting has the oak ecosystem dwindling. Your challenge, in this game, is to assure the with the patch with the orange “x.” continued existence of the oaks and their companion species. Each player fol - Notice that the woodland is dissected by lows two woodlands “Woodland 1 and Woodland 2” to see how different chance 3 ravines (heavy black lines); the fires events will affect the similar woodlands. cannot cross those ravines.

WhAT YOU WiLL neeD. SOMEWHAT DEGRADED WOODS One coin and crayons of orange , yellow , blue , green , and red . One copy of the page 2. (blue) have less grass and more shrubs; on the right for each player (Xerox or trace it as needed). they will burn more intensely, but only under somewhat extreme conditions. For TO START these, flip a coin twice. If the coin turns First determine the condition of the which square gets hit by lightning in 2008, up heads either time, fire will spread to woods in 1998. Each little square— and then proceed as in the first round. You the blue patches. Mark them (and any marked 1 to 25—represents one patch can end the game in 2018, or continue to additional yellow or green patches that of woods. The patches, depending on 2028 and beyond by making additional the fire then spreads through) with their fire history, are in different condi - copies of the page of woodland grids. orange as above. tions, which will be indicated by differ - ent colors. Seven patches are so densely OBJeCT OF The gAMe 3. BADLY DEGRADED WOODS (red) shaded that the animals and plants of At the end, the woodlands with the most will burn only under very extreme condi - the oak woods have completely died out remaining biodiversity win. Since these tions. Thus, if the first coin toss (above) (red) . Write the numbers “1” through communities are so dynamic, use the com - comes up tails, they do not burn. If the “25” on separate pieces of paper and bined scores of the last two rounds played first toss comes up heads, determine draw 7 from a hat to determine the red to indicate the current health of the which red patches will burn as follows: squares. Put a red dot in the center of woods. Each green (oak woods) square = flip the coin 5 more times—once for the 7 squares. Next, mark 2 patches 2 points, since that’s where the most ani - each of the five columns in each grid. that have burned so intensely that they mals and plants of this rare ancient If the toss comes up heads, place an are savanna or prairie (yellow) , 10 ecosystem survive. Each yellow or blue orange dot at the bottom of that col - patches that are completely healthy square = 1 point, since some of the oak umn. Now you can complete the fire. It open oak woodland (green) , and 6 woods species survive in these, and the will spread through all adjacent patches patches are in mixed condition, seriously woods may recover if the next decade’s that are yellow , green , blue , and any invaded with buckthorn and maple, burn conditions are right. Red squares = 0. red patches that are in the columns either of which can shade out species Few rare species will adapt to so changed marked with orange . of the oak woods (blue) . Thus you an ecosystem in merely a few decades. The burns change all the patches— mark the rest of the squares as follows: As you play, notice the dramatic (and except that the prairie (yellow) patches 2 yellow , 10 green , and 6 blue . You chaotic) impacts of chance events. that have burned remain prairie, and the may group or separate your ecosystem Consider how good stewards might act to badly degraded (red) patches that have patches to maximize the likelihood that ensure the continued health of the rose- not burned remain badly degraded. All the the fire will spread to maintain the bal - breasted grosbeaks, western chorus frogs, other burned patches change one step ance of the woodland. doll’s-eyes, midland brown snakes, great- toward yellow , and all unburned patches spangled fritillaries and other declining change one step toward red . Thus a red TO PLAY The neXT ROUnD species of the open oak woodlands. Once patch that burns becomes blue , and a Mark each patch in round 2 (“2008”) with you get a feel for the game, you may green patch that has not burned becomes a central dot the same color as the new also try to devise new rules that would blue . Color the outer parts of the squares color of the corresponding patch in 1998. give the oak ecosystem and its species a in their new color to see the new pattern Use new random numbers to determine better chance. of patches in the forest.

24 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Woodland 1 Woodland 2

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 21 22 23 24 25

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 16 17 18 19 20

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1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 21 22 23 24 25 News of the wild

1 60 ACRES BIGGER among others. “We removed all the 4 CAMP GOOD FELLOW The nation’s highest quality tallgrass existing vegetation on an eight acre site,” Beginning in October 1998, students savanna just got better. Better protected, explains restoration ecologist Bob Porter, throughout the region will come to Camp that is. On August 21, the Lake County “and left bare soil—a blank slate—which Good Fellow in the Indiana Dunes Forest Preserve District authorized the pur - we then re-seeded with native forbs and National Lakeshore, not only for outdoor chase of the 60-acre LeWa Farm, thus grasses. It was interesting to watch how fun, but to benefit from what Lee Botts, ensuring habitat extension and buffer for the native flora returned gradually year by president of the new Indiana Dunes Middlefork Savanna. The District also year as predicted by the experts. In the Environmental Learning Center, calls “a approved a conceptual master plan for the first year came the big blue stem and 15,000 acre classroom without walls.” All 514-acre preserve—including installing Indian grasses; a greater variety of plants activities, including fine arts, language arts, trails, nature education exhibits, restoring appeared during the second year, including exploration and hands-on discovery, are and managing oak woodland, savanna, and gray-headed cone flowers, blue lobelia and geared toward knowledge and appreciation prairie and wetlands, and establishing the swamp milkweed.” For more information, of science with an emphasis on “learning site as a national ecological research site call (312) 744-5472. by doing.” This fall, many 4th - 6th graders and outdoor classroom. — Eugene Bender will spend three days and two nights at Camp Good Fellow, sharing the dunes with 2 URBAN OASIS coyotes, deer, beavers, turtles, lizards, sala - On July 20, 200 people celebrated the manders, more than 300 bird species, and grand re-opening of North Park Village the widest diversity of plant species in the Nature Center, a 50-acre nature preserve Great Lakes region. Botts hopes to spread at 5801 N. Pulaski Road, in the middle of the word about the facility within a 90- P

Chicago’s north side. The city’s h mile radius. The center, operated by the o t o : Department of Environment rehabilitated Learning Center and the National Park E r i c

this site (once a tuberculosis sanitarium) W Service, is also open on weekends for pri - a l t e vate groups, and program plans are to be an oasis of Chicago Wilderness. r s Visitors are greeted by two acres of native underway for other grade levels, adults, flora in an entrance garden filled with 3 WHIMSICAL WHIMBREL families, and teachers to experience this more than 7,000 plants representing the “I’ve never heard or seen of such a thing in “living laboratory” in the dunes. For reser - four major ecosystems here: prairie, wet - my life!” said Illinois Ornithological vations and information, contact Lee Botts land, oak savanna and woodland. Restored Society’s Eric Walters, who wondered if he or Matthew Miller at (219) 938-8221. wetlands provide habitat for heron, king - was observing a Far Side cartoon come to —Becky Polivka fishers, red winged blackbirds, and turtles, life. Driving by Triangle Park on Chicago’s north side (literally a triangle, squeezed 5 STIFFER POACHING between a cemetery, apartment buildings, PENALTIES and CTA train tracks) one night, Walters “After habitat destruction,” says herpetolo - saw—and almost hit—probably the most gist Tom Anton, “poaching is the greatest prized annually-occurring shorebird in threat to endangered reptile and amphibian Illinois. A whimbrel strutted out from populations in northeastern Illinois, and between two beat-up old cars, jumped up on poachers have gotten much more sophisti - cated.” But enforcers are getting more 9 9 the curb, and walked along the sidewalk as if nothing was happening. Since that night on sophisticated, too. On August 18, Illinois 1 September 8, dozens of other eager birders enacted stiffer penalties for poaching. have seen this long-billed creature, which According to John Allen, public affairs seemed uncharacteristically fond of junk officer at the Illinois Department of x Natural Resources, “Under the old law, o food. “After much study, scientific evalua -

F D

e

s poachers would go out and grab a little bit P tion and fieldwork,” Walters noted, “I’ve

l a i n discovered the daily diet of this whimbrel every day. If they got caught, it would only e 3 0 s u 2 (urban subspecies): 1) Cheetos, 2) leftover be a misdemeanor. Under the new law, 9 Labor Day corn chips, 3) dirty street water, offenses occurring over the course of 90 4) dried bread chunks. These birds are nor - days will be considered cumulatively, so the { 9 q mally quite wary of people,” Walters added. penalties for individual poachers will be 6 “To get this close to one is a real treat.” much heavier.” Anton says poachers have t posed as graduate students. They also surf the net and attend academic conferences LAKE MICHIGAN to glean information about local popula -

e 4 tions of rare animals valuable on the exotic g a 7 P u e pet market. “My own maps have been used D Little Calumet to find and poach Massassauga rat - N tlesnakes,” he said. “A lot of researchers are 9 really circumspect about what they publish now. I hope the new law has an impact.” 0510 Miles q — Mark Sheehy

K an ka C HICAGO W ILDERNESS 26 kee There is a big difference between a “forest fire” and a “ground fire in the woods.” A “forest fire,” which burns down whole trees, is more likely after dense kindling fuel has built up following years of ground-fire suppression. 8 THANK GOD bond referendum, more than half of which Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Baha’i, and will be devoted to land acquisition. Buddhist leaders have been working Conservationists in Cook and Kane Counties are currently seeking to have P together to craft a vision for a sustainable h o

t bond issues for land acquisition placed on o

: Chicago region. Called the Interreligious

J i

m their ballots in the near future.

Sustainability Project of Metropolitan F l y n

n Chicago, this group has published “One / R

o 0 o Creation One People One Place,” a report WE LIKE MIKE t

R

e After his debut in Elgin on the Fourth of s on the state of the ecology, economy, and o u r

c July, Mike the Monarch has been e community of northeastern Illinois. “We s spreading his wings—and a message 6 believe that the religious community has a VAGRANT VISITOR special responsibility—and deep spiritual about our natural areas—throughout One of this continent’s most striking birds, a resources—to address the current crisis of northeastern Illinois. “Like many scissor-tailed flycatcher, spent more than two our relationship with the Earth,” states the environmental campaigns, the weeks this summer in DuPage County, catch - report. The project is reaching out to reli - effort to preserve ing meals along the Fox River. Salmon-col - gious congregations to encourage prayer, and restore our ored wing linings accentuate the bird’s pale study, and action to heal our common native wood - pearly gray body, which is doubled in length home. The group kicked off a series of fall lands, prairies, by its scissor-like tail. This species breeds as programs with an interfaith seed-gathering and wetlands close as north-central Missouri, and could be weekend October 3-4. A day-long work - needed a expanding its breeding range into Illinois, shop—Religion and Sustainable friendly, where nearly 50 sightings have been recorded. Development: A Participatory Dialogue— happy, In late summer, some bird species engage in followed on October 17. To obtain a copy charis - post-breeding dispersal and occasionally fly of the report or find out about upcoming matic out of their range. Lucky birders first spotted events, call (773) 278-4800 x 255. mascot,” said the DuPage County scissor-tail on August 3, creator David Lloyd. “Mike—in the flesh and in cartoon and dozens of people came to see the bird, 9 VOTING FOR LAND Several county bond referenda continue to form—raises awareness about how which remained until at least August 19. native species like him rely on people, —Sheryl De Vore produce funds for conservation land acqui - sition in the region. Before the end of the especially volunteers, to care for our nat - ural areas.” Keep your eyes peeled— 7 OH DEER year, DuPage County expects to close on the purchase of approximately 200 acres— Mike may be coming to your neighbor - In his studies of deer overpopulation in hood next! Indiana’s State Parks, Purdue University’s the first parcels to be acquired with Dr. George Parker has shown that the diver - funding from last year’s $75 million bond sity and abundance of plant and animal referendum (see Winter ‘98, p. 28). Last species are being harmed by deer predation June, the McHenry County Conservation in Indiana Dunes State Park. In particular, District offered $20 million worth of bonds for sale, most of which will be devoted to populations of insects and birds, especially If you know of news tidbits or important neotropical migratory species, are declining the purchase of 2,700 acres. Next April, Will County hopes voters will approve a events, contact Alison Brown, our News due to habitat destruction from the deer. On and Events Coordinator at August 26, the Save the Dunes Council $70 million bond issue, most of which will be used to purchase 6,500 acres, while [email protected] or P.O. Box 101 voted unanimously to support a reduction of Wilmette, IL 60091 the deer herd at Indiana Dunes State Park. Lake County looks toward a $55 million

{ WET WORK “It was a unique experience to restore the river bank, and perhaps save many fish and aquatic animals,” said 6th-grader Sarah Sippel. “It was a good way to take what we learned in science outside.” With hundreds of other 6th graders from 10 schools, Sippel worked to help stabilize degraded portions of the Kline Creek streambank in P h o t

DuPage County. She also helped to release 1,500 smallmouth bass o :

D u

raised in classroom aquariums. P a g e

Last year the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, in part - C o u n

nership with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, kicked t y

F o

off the remarkable program to restore plant diversity and prevent r e s t

soil erosion with a grant from the Illinois Environmental Protection P r e s e r

Agency and support from local businesses. v e

D i s

— Gerald D. Tang t r i c t

F ALL 1998 27 News of the wild

of laws and regulations principally in northwest Indiana. The Center for Walworth, WI Kenosha, WI LOSING GROUND: LAND CONSUMPTION IN THE Neighborhood Technology seeks to pro - CHICAGO REGION, 1900-1998 mote ecological, economic, and Openlands Project community development through public

Lake County Boundary policy, market development, and commu - City of Chicago Interstate Highway nity planning activities. The Jurica McHenry Rail Lines Nature Museum at Benedictine By 1900 (railroads in place) Lake Michigan By 1950 (early automobile era) University focuses mainly on collection, By 1998 (superhighway era) conservation, and education with an emphasis on biodiversity. Crystal Lake Cook Kane Park District and Lake View Nature Center both manage natural areas and educate the public about Illinois habitats DuPage and biodiversity. Liberty Prairie Conservancy protects and restores the Kendall 2,500-acre Liberty Prairie Reserve and fos - ters environmental ethics in Lake County. Friends of Ryerson Woods seeks to empower and educate individuals and orga - Grundy nizations to preserve, restore, and protect native plants and animal communities of

Will La Porte, IN the Des Plaines River Valley. Information about all Chicago Porter, IN Lake, IN Wilderness organizations is available from the Chicagoland Environmental Network } LOSING GROUND On August 27, Openlands Project released a state-of-the-art (708) 485-0263 x 369. regional map illustrating how land use patterns since 1900 have altered the landscape in a 13- county area from Kenosha, WI to Lapone, IN. Losing Ground: Land Consumption in the Chicago e CREATIVE CLEANUP Region, 1900-1998 , the first of two reports for the SOLAR (Strategic Open Lands at Risk) In the 1970s, US Steel (a USX Company) Project, graphically shows the accelerated urban sprawl of the last 50 years—when the region’s had a reputation as one of the most ardent population grew by 48 percent while land coverage increased by 165 percent. The second opponents of the federal Clean Water and report, due to be released at the end of November, will map and assess land at risk of develop - Clean Air Acts. Recently, however, the ment during the next 30 years. company reached a surprising—and innova The background of the suit was the lit - eral death of a five-mile stretch of the q FROM SWORDS TO NATIVE incarnation as a large-scale restoration of Grand Calumet River near US Steel’s 90- GRASSES: Disarming the Prairie tallgrass prairie. With the support of the year old plant in Gary, IN. But the Openlands Project and other groups, settlement went far beyond clean-up. USX Midewin was designated the first National will spend funds on new, cleaner tech - Tallgrass Prairie by Congress in 1996. nology that will make the company more —Sheryl De Vore competitive while going far beyond com - Time: Mon, Wed-Fri: 10:30AM-4:30 PM; pliance with environmental laws. The $30 Tues 10:30AM-8PM; Sat 10-5; Sun and million settlement includes $22 million for holidays 12-5 PM through January 17 future pollution abatement at the plant Place: Art Institute of Chicago and a $2.9 million civil penalty. USX will 111 South Michigan Avenue also donate five parcels of land totaling Admission: (Recommended) Adults $8.00; 246 acres to the National Park Service and children, students, and seniors $5 the state of Indiana. Tuesdays are free. “We expect to see a significant improve - Information: (312) 443-3600 ment in the river within the next five To celebrate its 35th anniversary, years,” said Tom Anderson of Save the Openlands Project is sponsoring “In Place w EIGHT NEW MEMBERS Dunes Council. “One of the parcels of land of Prairie: Photographs by Terry Evans,” an On August 5, Chicago Wilderness added contains 32 acres of globally rare dune and exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago eight new members. DuPage Audubon swale habitat that is home to the endan - exploring the history of the modern Society helps maintain St. Stephen’s gered Karner blue butterfly.” Another of Midwestern prairie. The exhibit features 50 Cemetery Prairie and West Chicago the parcels includes 76 acres along the Salt color and black-and-white photos of Prairie; they also provide bluebird houses Creek, a tributary to the Little Calumet prairies in Illinois and Kansas. Nationally- and monitor bluebird trails at McKee River that is home to trout and lake known photographer Terry Evans has Marsh, Morton Arboretum, and Oak salmon. included photos from the 23,000-acre Meadows and Maple Meadows Golf Clubs. US Steel president Paul J. Wilhelm Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. Images Save the Dunes Conservation Fund works termed the plan “a creative commitment convey the history of Midewin from its in sustainable economic planning, land to cost-effective environmental solutions time as a munitions plant to its current acquisition, restoration, and enforcement on the Grand Calumet. US Steel is grati -

28 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS If the oxygen content of the air is below 12 percent, fire cannot start, if it's over 25 percent, a fire won't go out. The present mix of our air con - tains roughly 21 percent oxygen. But there was a period, “well into the carboniferous era,” as Pyne says, when the percentage rose above 30. fied that a remediation plan was developed forests and grasslands). EPA expressed con - y WET NEIGHBORS through cooperative negotiation, rather fidence that the amount of prescribed Although Chicago was built atop drained than drawn-out litigation.” Wilhelm added burning, conducted under sound smoke wetlands, many of today’s new homes are that the plan “goes well beyond what is management programs, can be increased built beside wetlands. Thus, throughout the required of the company under terms of an substantially without causing violations of region, people and wetlands increasingly earlier (1990) consent agreement with the the air quality standards. Managing smoke are becoming neighbors. In order to help EPA—evidence of US Steel’s commitment can mean scheduling burning during favor - people understand, enjoy, and become to continuous environmental improve - able weather conditions, for instance. The good stewards of these soggy but precious ment as well as competitive excellence.” EPA pointed out that the damaging effects resources, The Wetlands Initiative has just The future? Lee Botts, longtime activist of excluding fire “mounted gradually and published Living with Wetlands: A and President of the new Indiana Dunes inconspicuously over decades. Fire exclu - Handbook for Homeowners in Northeastern Environmental Learning Center, points out sion practices have resulted in forests, Illinois. Chicago Wilderness and the Grand that USX is part of the Grand Calumet shrub lands, and grasslands plagued with a Victoria Foundation funded the free 24- Visioning—a project “that includes com - variety of problems, including over - page full-color book describing water munity folk, enviros, and other industries, crowding, resulting from the conditions, plant life, soil, wildlife, and to plan for what ought to happen along the encroachment of species normally sup - legal regulations unique to these ecosys - river in the future when the multiple pressed by fire; vulnerability of trees to tems. Two agencies that protect and clean-up efforts now underway create insects and disease; and inadequate repro - restore wetlands— US Fish & Wildlife undreamed-of possibilities. This for a river duction of certain species. In addition, Service, Chicago Field Office, and US for which 90 percent of the flow is indus - heavy accumulation of fuels (such as dead Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago trial effluent, but which now again has vegetation on forests floors) can cause fires District—were also partners in the project. beaver on its banks and conceivably will to be catastrophic, which threaten fire - The book offers practical information have fish safe to eat in my lifetime.” fighter and public safety, impair forest and about management of invasive plant —Mark Sheehy ecosystem health, and degrade air quality.” species and how to cope with nuisance — Elizabeth Sanders animals such as mosquitoes and geese. To rFEDS GIVE FIRE THUMBS UP request a free copy, write to The Wetlands In 1995, the US Departments of t BETZ BRONZED Initiative, 53 West Jackson Boulevard., Agriculture and the Interior jointly Suite 1015, Chicago, IL 60604; send email released The Federal Wildland Fire to [email protected] or visit the Management Policy and Program Review, website at www.wetlands-initiative.org. which formally recognized the critical role fire plays in the maintenance of healthy u CITIZEN SUCCESS IN wildland ecosystems. The new policy BARTLETT endorsed a significant increase in the use In the previous issue, Chicago WILDER - P h of “prescribed” fire as a normal land man - o

t NESS reported on the struggle to save o :

agement tool. The review recommended F e the Windt farm property in the village of r m i allowing fire to play its natural role in “an L a Bartlett from development. The cam - b ongoing and systematic manner, consistent paign to save the natural area, including with public health and environmental On August 15 the US Department of 36 acres of important wetland habitat, quality considerations.” The goals of this Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator seemed to hit an impasse last July when change in land management policy are to Laboratory dedicated its oldest prairie to the village filed to condemn parts of the reduce unnatural fuel densities that con - the man who started it all: biologist Robert property for streets and sewers, a hasty tribute to increasing unplanned fire F. Betz. Dr. Betz, an emeritus professor at 30 minutes before the Forest Preserve hazards, and to restore wildland ecosystems Northeastern Illinois University and an District of DuPage County filed to con - to their healthy natural state. Five federal expert in prairie ecology, is widely recog - demn the land for conservation. agencies —the US Forest Service, Bureau nized as a driving force behind prairie On September 8, however, the Bartlett of Land Management, National Park restoration efforts, not only at Fermilab Village Board voted unanimously to dis - Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, and but throughout northern Illinois. In 1974, miss its condemnation lawsuit saying Bureau of Indian Affairs—began Betz convinced Fermilab’s founding they had looked at all the facts and increasing the use of fire in the types of director, Robert Wilson, to support the decided it was best to support the Forest wildlands that most needed it in 1997. prairie reconstruction project. Betz formed Preserve’s plans for the property. Annual treatment targets for all federal the Fermilab Prairie Committee in 1975 to At press time, the Forest Preserve was land management agencies will be help rebuild the original grassland in the process of acquiring the property, increased to more than 5 million acres per ecosystem. Hundreds of volunteers have and campaign co-leader Mary Ellen year by 2005—up from an historic esti - harvested seeds, and Fermilab mainte - Knuth was celebratory. She praised the mate of 662,000 acres from 1984 to 1994. nance staff have become experts in citizen’s group that so much impressed On April 23, 1998, the US Environ- burning the area to combat weeds and the Village Board: “We did something as mental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a keep woody plants in check. As a result, a community, and none of us knew each related national policy that addresses how Fermilab now claims over 1,100 acres of other before. It shows you can make best to achieve national clean air goals restored tallgrass prairie. A brass plaque change. You’ve got to believe in it, and (including EPA’s national air quality stan - honoring the venerable Dr. Betz now we did.” dards for particulate matter), while stands on the spot where he planted the —Alison Carney Brown continuing to use fire to improve the first prairie grasses. quality of wildland ecosystems (including — Eugene Bender

F ALL 1998 29 Guest essay

within its member groups, the partners in Chicago Wilderness have hammered out a common vision that First Metropolis of strengthens every group’s work. But perhaps what is most exciting is the emerging hopeful vision for a vital, living the Future by Jane Elder landscape in this very urban region. We sense the promise of what is possible when good people come together for a common cause. few years ago, I conducted several focus groups in the Nearly half of the world’s people are living in cities, and AChicago area, asking questions about why people globally, all trends point to an increasingly urban human value nature. “Let me just say,” offered one participant, existence. In the United States, many of us have connec - “one of the joys is looking out in my backyard and hearing tions to a family farm, or perhaps to a fishing village in and seeing a cardinal. You cannot develop a color red like “the old country” or a similar experiential or emotional that cardinal.” connection to a real place in the land and the natural This man suggested one of those intangible reasons for world. However, with each new generation growing up caring about the natural world: it brings us personal joy. among concrete, packaged food, electric lights, air condi - Yet we also need nature for the health of the planet’s life tioning, etc., the connections to the rest of life are support systems—and for food, beauty, recreation, medi - increasingly tenuous. Our agrarian predecessors understood cine, spiritual experiences, and more. the life of soil, seasons and water cycles, but “the environ - Chicago Wilderness is a unique, bold and fascinating ment” is a mere abstraction to many modern city dwellers experiment in bringing people, institutions and nature who spend the bulk of their lives indoors. E. O. Wilson, a together for our common good. In the Biodiversity leading conservation biologist, writes about what’s hap - Project’s experience across the US and Canada, we’ve seen pening as an “extinction of experience” with the natural nothing else like it. In fact, we have feelers out around the world. Without these life experiences, it is harder for any globe, too, and so far there’s nothing comparable on the of us to understand or care about nature or living systems. planet. Thus, this growing collaboration of organizations, We care most about the things we know and love. Thus, if institutions and individuals is emerging as a possible model we are to have any hope of building communities that take for other large metropolitan areas seeking to conserve and pride in good stewardship for nature, we must help people celebrate their natural heritage. learn to know and love their local landscape. Chicago Wilderness has bridged many boundaries that In this sense, Chicago Wilderness offers an antidote to elsewhere have become barriers in environmental politics. the “extinction of experience” by weaving together a com - Here educational institutions have found ways to work munity to celebrate and restore its biological systems. If with advocacy groups, and government agencies have been Chicago-area citizens reawaken to the living tapestry with engaged as partners—instead of as the routine opposition. which all human lives are entwined, there is hope of In spite of the great diversity of missions and agendas reconnecting a sense of stewardship for the wild landscape

T IMELINE : C HICAGO W ILDERNESS

400 million 10,000 years ago 1673 1779 1816 years ago Prairies arrive in Native Americans guide Jean Baptist Point du The Potawatomi tribe The climate is tropical Illinois. Paleo-Indian French explorers Father Sable, an Afro-French- cedes a strip of land 10 and the warm Silurian hunters roam the Jacques Marquette and Canadian trapper who miles wide on either Sea covers the entire plains. Louis Joliet to the was born in Santo side of the mouth of Mississippi Valley. Chicago portage, the Domingo, becomes the the Chicago River that 4,500 to 2,500 low spot in the prairie first non-native extends southwest to 1 million years ago and the vital link in American settler in the headwaters of the years ago Early Woodland people the waterway between Chicago. Illinois River. This gives Glaciers covered most occupy the Chicago the Great Lakes and the United States con - of North America. They region. They plant the Mississippi River. trol of the Chicago advance and withdraw small gardens, make Portage route. as the climate cools stone carvings, build and warms. burial mounds, and probably trade with distant peoples.

30 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS within the densely populated metropolitan region. And, it it may be the opportunity to join up with an activist group is this bold vision that makes Chicago’s experiment an to tackle a tough conservation policy and make a direct dif - exciting challenge to other metropolitan regions. Imagine ference. For many, it’s the chance to collect seeds, help out the possibilities if every major urban center had a similar with prescribed burns, and pull weeds to restore healthy “wilderness” mission. Houston, we have an opportunity! nature to a site nearby. Through collaboration and coordi - And so, the eyes of the American environmental com - nation, the many voices for Chicago Wilderness can help munity—and some from Madagascar and Sao Paolo and ensure that the messages that reach Chicago-area citizens Warsaw—are watching to see how Chicago Wilderness about nature and biodiversity are clear and compelling. plays out. As the pages of this magazine repeatedly show, In the Biodiversity Project’s work, we urge those this multidisciplinary, multifaceted approach is connecting involved with conservation outreach to make the local people with the living planet in fresh, new ways. No single connections to species and habitats as visible as possible, approach or organization has the ability to reach as broadly whether it’s the way trees and other plants provide us with as this coalition does. oxygen, the role that spiders and bats play in keeping the Whether individuals encounter the information in a local insect populations in check, or the way a swamp headline, a classroom, at a favorite beach, the museum, on helps prevent flooding, we all need reminders on how we the trail, or in this magazine, Chicago-area citizens have are connected with the “circle of life.” Greater Chicago multiple opportunities to learn. This diversity of resources has always been a hardworking community, strengthened and opportunities increases the chances of reaching people by its rich ethnic and cultural diversity. Can it expand the at their “teachable moments” and connecting with any embrace of its Big Shoulders to include the diversity of individual’s particular needs and experience. nature in this remarkable land of prairies, savannas, dunes, Conservationists need to reach people where they are, and forests arching around the southern reach of Lake not where we wish they would be. We need to engage Michigan? Only time and work will tell the tale. But many people in a dialogue that respects the varied values, con - observers see the Chicago region as once again on the cerns, and experiences of our neighbors. In a 1996 national frontiers of human experience. We wish you well. poll on attitudes about the environment, 71 percent of Americans agreed that we have a responsibility to leave Jane Elder directs the Biodiversity Project on behalf of an asso - the earth in good shape for future generations. A majority ciation of more than 40 grantmakers that provide funds for the of Americans—67 percent—also believe that nature is conservation of habitat and species. Based in Madison, God’s creation and humans should respect God’s work. Wisconsin, with a staff of three, the Project was established in Yet no single type of language or program will speak to 1995 with several missions: first, to assess public opinion on everyone. To engage people in caring about their natural biodiversity; second, to identify strategies that will increase world, we need to offer experiences at many levels. For public awareness and engagement; and third, to lay the ground - some, the magic might be in a zoo exhibit that expands work for implementing those strategies by fostering collaboration basic awareness and sparks a sense of wonder. For another, among leaders in the field.

1832 1871 1903 1915 1996 Chief Black Hawk’s war - The Chicago fire burns Aaron Montgomery The Forest Preserve Chicago Wilderness, riors cause white large sections of the Ward, a millionaire District of Cook County, a partnership of organi - settlers of the Des city, destroying 18,000 merchant, wins his the first in the nation, zations for protection, Plaines and DuPage buildings, leaving battle to preserve the is established. restoration, and stew - areas to flee to 90,000 homeless and lake side of Michigan ardship of 200,000 Chicago, where the 300 dead. Rebuilding Avenue as parkland for 1942 acres of wild lands and population rises from begins immediately. the city. Every building The Atomic Age begins native species in the 100 to 500 as a result. except the Art Institute on December 2 with Chicago metropolitan 1890 of Chicago is torn the world’s first area, is established. 1870 Chicago’s population down. sustained nuclear Three hundred thou - reaches 1,000,000. reaction at the sand people live in 1909 University of Chicago. Chicago, making it the Daniel H. Burnham and country’s fastest Edward H. Bennett’s 1992 growing metropolis. Chicago Plan proposes An underground tunnel city parks, forest pre - collapses and Loop serves, and a public office buildings are lakefront. flooded by Chicago River water.

F ALL 1998 From The Nature of Chicago by Isabel S.Abrams (Chicago Review Press, Inc.) 31 Reading pictures

Bittersweet he lush prairie in this picture tells a bittersweet story. ually die out. Without habitat, they die. TYes, it’s beautiful. Yes, indeed, it is recognizable as one The lush foreground vegetation tells us this prairie is of the finest prairie remnants east of the Mississippi. But freshly fired, but the edge of the shrubs isn’t burned back. this shot also shows a struggle. We see lush herbs, but we don’t see dead, burned sticks. The First notice the species. That’s easiest. Rattlesnake fire wasn’t hot enough. For millennia, the prairies and the master with its white shrubby edges of oak woods spheres, gayfeather or survived side by side in a blazingstar in violet- delicate balance. The lack purple spikes, the of this balance is the elephant-ear leaves of potential tragedy that prairie dock. A hundred spices the bittersweetness species of rare plants here here. If modern fires are tell us that this is a rem - prescribed only for the very nant of the ancient wettest, coolest days, when prairie that once covered just the dense grass and 90 percent of Cook none of the shrubby edges County. burn, then inexorably the Next notice the brush. shrubs will advance and Gray dogwood, a native obliterate. Only as we n plant, is a fine thing in and of itself. Yet its advance learn to recognize and restore the fire-mediated balance will i v l a G

threatens to destroy an ancient balance. If the trend con - the ancient heritage once again thrive among us. y e s a C

tinues, the prairie dies. If the brush progressively spreads, as : e t i s o

it will, and if the prairie fire doesn’t burn the brush edge Photos at Somme Prairie Nature Preserve and Gensburg p p O

o

back, then the froghoppers, hairstreak butterflies, lilies, Markham Prairie in Northbrook and Markham, Illinois. By t o h meadow voles, and a thousand other grassland species grad - Stephen Packard. P

32 C HICAGO W ILDERNESS Large acorns (e.g. bur and red oak) are dispersed and planted mostly by squirrels. Small acorns (scarlet oak) are dispersed mostly by blue jays. CHICAGO WILDERNESS MEMBERS:

Brookfield Zoo Lincoln Park Zoo Butterfield Creek Steering Committee Long Grove Park District Calumet Ecological Park Association Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation Campton Historic Agricultural Lands, Inc. McHenry County Conservation District Canal Corridor Association Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Center for Neighborhood Technology of Greater Chicago Chicago Academy of Sciences Morton Arboretum Chicago Botanic Garden The Nature Conservancy Chicago Ornithological Society No. Cook County Soil & Water Conservation District Chicago Park District Northeastern Illinois Planning Citizens for Conservation Commission City of Chicago, Department Openlands Project of Environment Prairie Woods Audubon Society Crystal Lake Park District Save the Dunes Conservation Fund The Conservation Foundation Save the Prairie Society Conservation Research Institute Schaumburg Park District DuPage Audubon Society John G. Shedd Aquarium The Field Museum Shirley Heinze Environmental Fund Forest Preserve District of Cook County Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter Forest Preserve District of DuPage County St. Charles Park District Forest Preserve District of Kane County Sustain, The Environmental Forest Preserve District of Will County Information Group Fort Dearborn Chapter, Thorn Creek Audubon Society Illinois Audubon Society Urban Resources Partnership Friends of the Chicago River US Army Corps of Engineers, Friends of the Parks Chicago District Friends of Ryerson Woods US Dept. of Energy, Argonne The Grove National Historic Landmark National Laboratory Hammond Environmental US Dept. of Energy, Fermi National Education Center Accelerator Laboratory Illinois Department of Natural Resources US Environmental Protection Agency, Illinois Natural History Survey Region 5 Illinois Nature Preserves Commission US EPA Great Lakes National Program Office Indiana University Northwest USDA Forest Service Jurica Nature Museum USDA Natural Resources Conservation Lake County Forest Preserves Service Lake Co. Stormwater USDI Fish & Wildlife Service Management Commission USDI National Park Service Lake Michigan Federation The Wetlands Initiative Lake View Nature Center Wild Ones Natural Landscapers, Ltd. Liberty Prairie Conservancy

F ALL 1998 33 Fall 98 Cover F&B_ Fall 98 Cover F&B 12/24/15 9:45 AM Page 2

Seed dispersal agent Katy Goff of Flossmor, IL. Photo by Joe Nowak. about the photo

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