Spring 1998

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: SPRING 1998.]

John Rogner: Down By The River

By Debra Shore

This man loves to get wet. Given the slimmest excuse, he'll grab a pair of waders from the supply closet and head for the nearest creek. Instantly he's studying the current, looking for pools and eddies where the fish might be. Of course, as Field Supervisor for the Chicago field office of the US Fish & Wildlife Service (F&WS), John Rogner has a professional excuse — and a closet stocked with waders, seine nets, depth measuring tools, and other supplies for a person whose "office" is most properly outdoors.

The legal mandate of the F&WS is to help preserve and restore game, migratory birds, endangered species and other flowery, furry, scaly or feathered friends. But Rogner comes to this vocation from a youth spend most happily mucking around on the banks of the Kishwaukee River near Belvidere, Illinois. "I was down there every day fishing, catching crayfish, laying on logs and floating down the river on a summer afternoon," he recalled. "It was all unstructured. I explored and observed and started to love it."

Rogner earned degrees in biological sciences from Northern Illinois University, specializing in fish known as darters. "Oh, they are neat fish," Rogner said. "They're the warblers of the North American fish world." For his graduate studies, Roger researched geographic variation in the redband darter, which is endemic to Tennessee. (About eight species of darters are found in the Chicago Wilderness region.)

Rogner, 43, now lives in Kane County near Elgin with his wife, Sue Elston, and hunting dog, Lena (named after a hydric soil series, he points out: Lena Muck). Following a stint farming near Belvidere with his brother-in-law, Rogner joined the Army Corps of Engineers in 1983 to work in the wetland regulatory program.

In 1991 he joined Dr. Benjamin Tuggle, who was establishing a brand-new office for the Fish & Wildlife Service to serve six counties of northeastern Illinois. The agency wanted to become more involved in environmental education and urban areas. (Benjamin Tuggle served as the first chairman of the Chicago Region Biodiversity Council, the formal name for the Chicago Wilderness initiative. When Tuggle moved to Washington last September to become Chief of Habitat Conservation for F&WS, Rogner succeeded him as Field Supervisor and was named Vice Chairman of the Council.)

Outside its highly respected refuge system, the F&WS has mostly worked with farmers. "Traditionally, the F&WS has been an agent of the 'back 40,' " Rogner said. "But we're hoping to develop a model for how the Service should operate in urban areas."

Toward that end, the F&WS has contributed $1.3 million since 1996 to support Chicago Wilderness projects ranging from scientific research to on-the-ground demonstration projects restoring creeks and woods and prairies to outreach through the Junior Earth Team.

"Partnerships are the way you accomplish big things in conservation," Rogner added. "I think Chicago Wilderness represents a demonstration of what our role might be." Rogner stressed the importance of connecting urban and suburban dwellers with natural areas, "so that conservation becomes a part of our cultural fiber. We've got to be careful we don't put these areas up on a shelf and force people to admire them from a distance."

Rogner's own hands-on work on the land extends from his backyard, which he's been gradually restoring to oak savanna, to volunteer restoration efforts at Ferson Creek Fen, a St. Charles Park District site on the Fox River. He's also been a key member of the team of volunteers helping to restore the federally-endangered eastern prairie white-fringed orchid in the region. Of his home project, he said, "I burn annually and I'm introducing hazelnut and viburnum. In the late fall the yard is a sea of blue with Short's aster and — oh! — here's an exciting thing. About five years ago I collected some seeds of bloodroot and slung them out there and forgot about them. Two years ago I saw a few basal leaves and this year I saw six flowering bloodroot plants. So I guess the point is, Chicago Wilderness is where you find it or where you make it."