|
Summer
2000
Classic
Prairie Restorations
by
Ray Wiggers. ------> To
Introduction
Schulenberg Prairie | Gensburg-Markham
Prairie | Fermilab Prairie
Along
the North Branch of the Chicago River, Illinois
 f
the Schulenberg and Gensburg-Markham Prairies stand as a
testament to what can be done to rebuild prairies on private
land, the restoration work under way along the Chicago River’s
North Branch reveals both the added advantages and the added
challenges of such efforts undertaken in public preserves.
They also show how a self-sustaining network of volunteers,
working in partnership with public officials, can expand
the scope of restoration from prairies alone to other ecosystems
as well. They also are a proving ground on the potentials
and challenges of appealing to a broad constituency.
Though
once besmeared by brush and garbage, the North Branch sites
included tiny gems of ancient nature, like these three prairie
acres in Somme Woods. Photo by Stephen Packard.
Beginning
in 1975, Stephen Packard and other volunteers began identifying
degraded prairie communities in a number of Cook County
Forest Preserve District sites along the North Branch. Their
efforts both secured official permission from District officials
and attracted more volunteers.
In
1977 the first work began, with seed collection at what
is now part of Somme Prairie Nature Preserve (at the time
it was an abandoned military installation). A week later
that seed was planted at three of the original North Branch
locations — the Wayside, Miami Woods, and Bunker Hill
Prairies. The volunteer restorers, with no way to till the
ground prior to seeding, experimented with the technique
of planting the collected prairie in a less invasive way,
just putting the seed in the ground among the well-established
invader species.
While
the positive results of this approach sometimes took years
to fully manifest themselves — and while the volunteers
had to develop a special fund of faith and patience —
they learned, like Dr. Betz at Gensburg-Markham, that the
technique ultimately did work in most situations. As this
success became more apparent and the Forest Preserve District
increasingly respected the group for their knowledge and
dedication, more sites were entrusted to their care. Now
there are 15.
Restoration
"work parties" cut brush, plant seed, eat, drink
and be glad. Photo by Stephen Packard.
They
work closely with Forest Preserve staff who review and approve
all plans and who supervise parts of the work. Although
the group relies almost entirely on muscle power, they have
to date restored well over 100 acres of land to good or
high quality. They gather more than 150 species of seeds
for use in restoration. These are combined into a dozen
custom mixtures for varied conditions. The seed bags are
marked with names like MOS, WMP and TURF — for mesic
open savanna, wet mesic prairie, and a "turf"
mix of the rarest prairie species, which do best if raked
into an already good quality prairie turf.
Among
the longest active and most expert of the North Branch leaders
is Larry Hodak, who, together with his wife Chris, joined
the effort in 1978. The North Branch sites were gradually
selected on the same principle Dr. Betz had used at Gensburg-Markham,
far to the south: in each case, there was a surviving core
of native species from which the volunteers could work to
restore a greater area.
Hodak
has been the volunteer steward of Sauganash Prairie Grove
since 1988. This project, situated where the Chicago River
has carved small but well-defined bluffs on the city’s
north side, contains sedge meadow, wet savanna, bluff woodland,
and floodplain forest. It is cherished by both volunteers
and by scores of "Mighty Acorns," students from
a public school who once came by the busloads to work here.
It’s in the city proper, and here one feels the wet,
wooded, lowland soul of Chicago better than anywhere else.
The
work at Harms Woods, where John and Jane Balaban are stewards,
is especially impressive. They’ve cut and burned out
the buckthorn and girdled some larger invasive trees to
bring sufficient sunlight. Now the increasingly rich layer
of wildflowers support increasing numbers of butterfly and
bird species throughout spring, summer, and fall. "It
was even too dark for the oaks to reproduce. At last we’re
beginning to see some oak regeneration," says John
Balaban. A walk through a restored North Branch woods is
a journey back to a rich past, and a vision ahead to an
imagined future when healthy sustainable woodlands will
be permanent parts of the region’s wildlands.
In
their work, the Balabans also have learned the same lesson
that Schulenberg, Dr. Betz, and Panzer learned almost contemporaneously
at the region’s other restorations. Badly degraded
areas need seed; they won’t recover just by "nature
taking its course." For many animal species, it’s
size that matters. But when a sizeable area has been restored,
here they come. The Balabans have welcomed the return of
Cooper’s hawks, great-crested flycatchers, and the
arrestingly named purple maniac wasps. Says Jane Balaban,
"You know you’re leaving a legacy, a gift for
the future." John nods in agreement. "Gradually,
you begin to feel a connection with something greater than
yourself. A bond forms between you and the land."
Is
this bond contagious? There’s reason to think it is.
More than 200,000 acres of conservation land are now publicly
protected as Chicago Wilderness. The land managers of conservation
agencies, like the volunteers and academics, are building
the emerging discipline of restoration, with increasing
technical proficiency and public support at hundreds of
sites throughout the region. If the work of Schulenberg,
Betz, and their successors continues to engage our spirits
and inspire our willingness to care for the Earth and its
creatures, we’ll leave a worthy legacy indeed.
After
ten years of seeding and weed control, the woods are a picture
of glowing health. Photo by Stephen Packard.
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2006 Chicago Wilderness Magazine, Inc.
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