News

Machines, Volunteers Expand Habitat
at Big Grasslands

The real-estate market may be faltering, but almost a square mile of new home sites are now being offered to bobolinks, king rails, and bitterns in southern Cook County. Late this winter, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and Openlands started two major projects, at 560-acre Bartel Grassland and 960-acre Orland Grassland, to remove tree plantations, disable agricultural drain tiles, and restore native vegetation. The aim is to expand existing habitat for shorebirds, wetland birds, and grassland birds.

Though the large-scale brush removal and earth-moving involved in the project requires the use of heavy equipment by contractors, both Judy Pollock, director of bird conservation for Audubon–Chicago Region, and Brook Herman, ecologist with the Army Corps, credit the volunteer groups at Orland and Bartel with making the work possible. “The vision of the volunteers was crucial to making both these projects occur and to keeping the work on track,” says Pollock. “And it will be the ongoing work of the volunteers that will enable us to hold on to the gains made by the contractors.”

Building on work begun in 2001, both projects will last five years. The Corps is providing $3.6 million for Orland, while the $4.5 million for Bartel comes from funds paid by the City of Chicago in exchange for wetlands lost to the expansion of O’Hare Airport.

Disabling more drain tiles will return wetlands and wet grasslands to both sites. Pollock says that Bartel in particular has the potential to attract imperiled nesting wetland birds.

Removing the tree plantations will benefit birds that nest in grasslands. According to a 1999 report published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “During the past quarter century, grassland birds have experienced steeper, more consistent, and more widespread population declines than any other avian guild in North America.” In the Chicago region, the primary threat comes from habitat fragmentation, where trees and brush provide perching spots and cover for nest predators such as hawks and raccoons.

“This is our poster child for aquatic ecosystem restoration,” Herman says of the Orland project. “It’s the first big step forward for the Chicago District of the Army Corps in the direction we would like to move.”

— Barbara Hill