10 Years, 10 Trends

The ten biggest trends in biodiversity across Chicago Wilderness over the last ten years: how a decade changed our thinking, the landscape, and the future.

Only a tiny percentage of our plant species survive in random “open space.” The majority live in high-quality woodlands, prairies, and wetlands. Most rare animals, from fish to butterflies, also require quality habitats. According to Dr. Ron Panzer of Northeastern Illinois University, biodiversity is 90-percent dependent on these relatively few high-quality natural areas.

Given that our richness in biodiversity was the original impetus for Chicago Wilderness, one might expect that quality natural areas would have gotten sufficient attention during the past decade. But researchers say that isn’t the case.

Studies by Morton Arboretum botanist Marlin Bowles found that most of the region’s highest-quality woodlands, wetlands, and prairies are declining due to inadequate management.

Bowles found that even wetlands (including fens, sedge meadows, and marshes) need to be burned at least one out of every five years to maintain species richness. Most sites experienced much less frequent burning, losing species richness and increasing in exotic species, woody species, and narrow-leaved cattail. “The cattail is particularly critical,” says Bowles, “as there is a direct negative relationship between its abundance and species richness. As cattails increase, we lose species.”

Simply put, most open lands are in bad ecological shape and getting worse. Chicago Wilderness Habitat Project director Dr. Karen Glennemeier has supervised regionwide “audits” of woodlands and grasslands. She sampled 238 random plots in the forests and found 82 percent were only fair or poor in quality. Only 4 percent of our oak woodlands were in excellent shape. Nor did the prairies do any better. When rated for floristic quality, 90 percent were “fair or poor.” Such sites rarely support high-quality, “conservative” species.

In addition to anemic burn regimens, says Panzer, one of the biggest problems has been invasive species, both native and nonnative. Purple loosestrife and cattails are choking out the wetlands. In the woods, buckthorn and maple shade out oak seedlings as well as increasingly rare grasses, wildflowers, salamanders, native bees, and other species. In the prairies, reed canary grass and tall goldenrod are “running rampant.”

“Tall goldenrod is overrunning most sites,” says Panzer. “Teasel has absolutely exploded…and almost certainly cannot be checked” without substantial work.

Panzer said that most insect species of conservation concern “are becoming less common, with roughly half—about 200 species—persisting on fewer than ten sites, most of which are declining rapidly (for example, West Chicago Prairie, Grant Creek Prairie, Hoosier Prairie, Clark and Pine Prairie, Goose Lake Prairie, Romeoville Prairie, Illinois Beach State Park, et cetera).”

Managers need to master an impressive balancing act, since too-frequent fire may kill off many rare insect species, while too little will eliminate the very ecosystem these same species depend on. In the oak woods, an occasional light burn on a cool day that toasts a few understory trees seems not to be sufficient. The problem? In more than 100 years of fire suppression the larger trees have grown too dense. “Larger trees are also quite fire-resistant,” points out Bowles, so researchers and managers “may have to look at methods of thinning tree canopies, either by mechanical means, or hotter fires.”

Bowles, Glennemeier, and Panzer all agree that the critical need for the next decade is dramatically more management staff and more resources of all types. According to Panzer, “We need five to six times more volunteers working on the high-quality remnants that actually support the scores of conservative species that we will otherwise lose.”

Ready for some good news? Over the last ten years, all of the region’s forest preserve and conservation districts have substantially increased their land management staffs. And every county can point to success stories with restoration of the woodlands, wetlands, and prairies where they have enough resources to manage intensively. The forest preserve districts (especially Cook and Lake Counties) have shown particular success in restoring habitat for rare grassland birds (see Trend #3).

Much of that positive work has been forged in an atmosphere of increased collaboration. While collaboration isn’t new, the Chicago Wilderness consortium, founded in part to spur synergies across its broad partnership, has added considerable oxygen to the fire. As executive director Melinda Pruett-Jones wrote, “we are joined in an effort that is larger than any one organization or group and…together, we can achieve so much more than we can alone.” Over ten years, the consortium has drawn in diverse stakeholders and experts. Consortium grants explicitly encourage partnerships, so in planning every project—from restoration to outreach—groups first ask: who can we partner with? Major projects now number above 240.

“I’m always amazed, and thinking this was exactly what was meant to happen,” says Ken Klick, an ecologist with the Lake County Forest Preserves. “When organizations like Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission and Center for Neighborhood Technology become involved in things like GIS mapping of endangered and threatened species and rare habitats, from a science perspective it’s wonderful that there’s been a multidisciplinary approach. There have been great strides in that.”

After ten years of thinking across boundaries, it has become commonplace that the community at large should also be a part of conservation work. “There are many more corporate partners now, corporations reaching out to do service projects,” says Jane Balaban, a volunteer steward of roughly 30 years at Harms Woods in Glenview. “Goldman Sachs has come to North Branch workdays for five or six years. There’s also Allstate, Shedd Aquarium.”

Faith-based efforts, such as Faith in Place, which was launched in 1999, now bring members of various religions to work on the preserves. The Unitarian Universalist Church in Elgin attracts the general public to its Prairie Fest each year, and has planted a small prairie on its grounds.

“Lots more schools have gotten involved in a regular way,” says Balaban. “We’ve had several different groups from Northwestern University coming, and have been seeing more ‘alternative spring break’ groups.” She also named high schools, Boy and Girl Scouts, and city youth programs.

Anyone can visit the preserves where volunteer and professional restoration efforts have taken place. These sites are evidence that damaged landscapes can indeed recover. But while the restorations that reestablish habitat on former farmland and vacant land may someday be able to support all the rare butterflies, bees, orchids, and fungi that characterize original natural communities, that’s a long way off. There is still no substitute for protecting remnant habitats wherever they hang on.

Perhaps the biggest change in our bird populations over the last decade came with West Nile virus in 2002, which wiped out local populations of crows, chickadees, and other species. Some areas have yet to see the return of breeding populations. In the decade’s other national bad-news story, Audubon found that 20 once-common birds have declined severely. But while habitat disappears, one encouraging trend in Chicago Wilderness has been successful projects in every county to increase grassland birds on protected lands by reducing habitat fragmentation and degradation. In many cases these birds, declining elsewhere, are up, anywhere from 300 to 1,200 percent.

The decade has seen a number of birds long absent from the local scene return to breed. A first osprey nest in the Palos Preserves seems to have been the vanguard of a local colony, with several pairs now finding homes in preserves of Cook and DuPage Counties. Clay-colored sparrows, first spotted at Poplar Creek Forest Preserve and Springbrook Prairie, can now be found in a number of preserves. Chicago’s Calumet area has had more than its fair share of firsts, speaking well of the efforts underway to preserve and restore the wetlands there. Returning species include the little blue heron and the bald eagle.

The northwestern part of Chicago Wilderness is dotted by glacial wetlands that are one of the state’s biggest population centers for wetland birds. A comprehensive 30-year study there reveals that wetland birds such as common moorhen, black tern, Virginia rail, and others have fared very poorly. Only two wetland birds are increasing: the mute swan (an aggressive introduced species) and the sandhill crane, which is happily returning after decades of absence and now nests in many large restored wetlands.

A number of birds have had their “endangered or threatened” designation lessened or removed. Of most interest to our region is the Henslow’s sparrow, which has increased tremendously in the state due to various conservation programs, including habitat restoration and agricultural set-asides; the peregrine falcon, which has been helped by projects like Chicago’s Peregrine Release program; and the Cooper’s hawk—sufficiently recovered after the DDT ban to become a common resident of our woods.

For a few birds, the decade has been a long struggle to hold on. Our only Illinois population of Swainson’s hawks, in Kane and McHenry Counties, maintains its tiny numbers: the development which threatened their habitat has been slowed by the downturn in the housing market. Our state’s last breeding Forster’s terns persist in the Chain O’ Lakes area, despite lack of nesting success due to recreational boating as well as a predator, the great horned owl. Herculean efforts, led by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, have successfully defended our one common tern nesting colony, in Waukegan.

A happy milestone was the publication of a Chicago Wilderness-wide study of bird trends based on data collected by birders. The Bird Conservation Network Census showed some increases, such as the blue-gray gnatcatcher, which seems to like our woodland restorations. Strong decreases were found in willow flycatcher populations, echoing troubling national declines in shrubland bird populations.

—Judy Pollock

There’s a new acronym in town: NAMBIES—Neighbors Against McMansions, Big Invasive Eyesores. During the 1990s, new homes, both large and small, gobbled up 134 square miles of land in northeastern Illinois, bringing with them many of the ills of suburban sprawl.

During the past decade, the population of Kane County grew by 27 percent. Will County’s population grew by 40 percent. By 2030, the population of the entire region is expected to grow by 2 million people, placing even greater pressure on limited resources, such as farmland, water, and natural areas.

Many wonder how we can accommodate so many new people and also protect our embattled biodiversity. One answer lies in the Chicago Wilderness Green Infrastructure Vision. Published in 2004, it maps existing protected natural areas, as well as  “opportunities for expansion, restoration, and connection.” If realized, it would increase the amount of protected natural areas from roughly 300,000 to 1.8 million acres.

Recent efforts in McHenry County, which experienced a population surge of 41 percent during the 1990s, epitomizes how a combination of land protection measures can help achieve such an ambitious vision. The McHenry County Conservation District and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources teamed up to buy 300-plus acres to protect the headwaters of Boone Creek. Just downstream, eight private landowners within the 465-acre Boone Creek Fen and Seep Natural Areas Inventory Site dedicated large parcels as Illinois Nature Preserves or placed them under conservation easement. These parcels comprise a nucleus of permanently protected land that regional officials expect will expand and protect the entire inventory area.

Perhaps most innovative of all, two new subdivisions within the watershed, the Sanctuary at Bull Valley and McAndrews Glen, employ conservation design principles that allow for the building of new housing but also protect natural resources. One subdivision is restoring prairie and oak savanna habitat as a key groundwater recharge zone.

It’s too early to call such conservation communities a trend, but they’ve definitely got the NAMBIES on their side.

—Arthur Melville Pearson

“Buy land,” Mark Twain advised. “They’re not making any more of it.” If Twain were living today, he might have added, “especially natural land.” Within the more than 7-million-acre boundary of Chicago Wilderness, only five percent, or roughly 300,000 acres, is protected as “natural” open space. High-quality natural areas represent an even smaller fraction: less than one-tenth of one percent.

Taking Twain to heart, voters throughout northeastern Illinois have approved 29 open space bond referenda, totaling $1.05 billion, over the past decade. By the time this money is fully spent, park districts, forest preserve districts, townships, and municipalities will have acquired about 35,000 acres of additional protected open space.

With proceeds from a $75 million bond referendum passed in 2005, the Forest Preserve District of Kane County expanded several existing preserves and established a number of new ones, including the 1,139-acre Virgil Forest Preserve. Now one of the largest preserves in the county, it is comprised of land that had been slated for a 1,600-unit subdivision. Successful efforts such as this helped spur Kane County voters to pass a second referendum in April 2007, providing an additional $85 million for open space acquisition.

If Twain were still with us, he might be surprised to learn that buying land isn’t the only way to preserve a finite resource. During the past two years, several of the region’s land trusts experienced sharp spikes in conservation easements (voluntary agreements not to develop private land). The spikes were in response to the federal government’s extension and expansion of easement-related tax breaks. Brook McDonald, president and CEO of The Conservation Foundation, reported that his organization has nearly doubled the number of acres held in conservation easements to more than 1,000.

Whether the increased rate of easements will continue is anyone’s guess, but McDonald knows one thing for sure: “people are sick and tired of sprawl.” That’s why they have overwhelmingly supported so many referenda to buy more natural land, and are likely to support yet more as development pressure casts an ever-widening net across the region.

—Arthur Melville Pearson

While Chicago-area residents were channeling substantial funds toward nature, state and federal government prioritized spending elsewhere, forcing local conservation and nature programs to tighten their belts.

The last decade saw federal sources of funding for conservation and nature drop across the board. “Chicago Wilderness has made a conscious effort to diversify our funding sources,” says consortium vice chair Laurel Ross. “We began with 100 percent federal support, but as our annual spending needs increase, Fish & Wildlife Service and Forest Service budgets are being cut. Now less than half of our support comes from federal sources. The rest comes from foundations, private individuals, and corporations.”

Some attribute the federal funding drop to military spending on the war in Iraq. The Forest Service budget also has been stressed by several years of fighting long-suppressed wildfires in the West.

On the state level, Governor Rod Blagojevich looked to nature funds to patch a gaping hole in the Illinois budget. A March 2007 report by the Illinois Environmental Council warned that “as the state’s fiscal crisis and debt issues have intensified…the amount the state has dedicated to open space acquisition has dropped drastically.” The report pointed to a $60 million decline in yearly spending by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources between 2002 and 2006, major backups in Illinois’ two biggest open space funding tools (known as OSLAD and NAAF), a roughly $10.62 million drop in Conservation 2000 fund annual levels from 2002 to 2007, and a complete discontinuation of the Open Land Trust program, “which provided $200 million for open space acquisitions from 1999 to 2003.”

But not all the news is bad, says Ross. “In the earliest days,” she said, “the thing we told prospective members and supporters was that we would bring in dollars for conservation that wouldn’t otherwise have been there. We aimed to enlarge the ‘conservation pie’ in this region, rather than dividing it up further. That has happened in many instances. The fact that there is so much positive attention on conservation has also influenced local decision makers like cities and park districts to distribute resources differently than they previously did.”

Over the past decade, concern has increased markedly about global warming, a climate trend scientists have known about for decades.
The film An Inconvenient Truth made global warming a hot topic in 2006, spurring governments, environmental groups, and others around the world to mobilize. And in the last few years, Chicago-region organizations have themselves begun to discuss how climate change might affect regional biodiversity conservation.

Given the complex, global nature of climate change, scientists have only recently developed reliable models for predicting its impacts on a regional scale. In 2003, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported on impacts in the Great Lakes Region. They predicted that by the end of the century, a summer in Illinois will feel like a summer in east Texas today.

Local naturalists are already seeing changes, though they acknowledge that natural year-to-year fluctuations play a role. In recent years, plants have flowered earlier and frosts have occurred later in the fall. Average temperatures are increasing, and less ice is forming on lakes. Dropping lake levels and warmer water threaten cold-water fish such as lake trout and whitefish. Meanwhile, more frequent heavy rainstorms are causing short-term flooding. All of these changes stress local ecosystems, and could have dire results for some species.

Bob Sullivan, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, chairs the Chicago Wilderness Climate Change Task Force. “Many of our existing conservation strategies assume generally stable climate conditions,” says Sullivan. “That is no longer the case. In many cases, changing climate will change habitat suitability despite our best efforts to maintain the status quo.”

Sullivan says natural resource managers are beginning to develop conservation strategies that take climate change into account. These new strategies could increasingly emphasize north-south bridges of preserved land, or “corridors,” between natural areas. Such corridors allow some species to move in search of suitable conditions, though their effects are still being studied. Sullivan says it may be necessary to move threatened species to more suitable habitat, or to manage preserves more like ecosystems from farther south. (While many of the prevalent habitat types of Chicago Wilderness also occur much farther south, the greatest challenge may be preserving the cold-dependent “relict” habitats reminiscent of northern climes.)

Of course, reducing the impacts of climate change also requires global action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Organizations such as the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Chicago Park District have invested in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Zoos and museums are educating visitors about how they can reduce their carbon footprint, and the City of Chicago is developing its own climate action plan. Individuals are also pitching in by conserving energy, choosing fuel-efficient vehicles, and bicycling or using public transportation.

Regardless of the success of these efforts, global warming can’t be reversed overnight and average temperatures are expected to continue to increase in the decade ahead. Increased awareness and action will be needed to preserve biodiversity in a changing climate.

—Stephanie Folk

With suburban sprawl increasingly encroaching on wildlife habitat over the last decade, animals that require large areas of high-quality habitat have declined. Other animals have adapted to life in the suburbs and expanded their range into the widening expanse of subdivisions and office parks.

Species such as white-tailed deer, Canada geese, raccoons, and coyotes have proved highly adaptable to suburban living. Dan Thompson, an ecologist with the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, says white-tailed deer have become so abundant that they are upsetting local ecosystems by gobbling every plant in reach. Coyotes have been spotted with increasing frequency in suburban settings, and in April a young coyote made the news after seeking refuge in a downtown Chicago sandwich shop. Meanwhile, raccoons boldly raid city garbage cans, and geese wander among tourists in Millennium Park.

Other species have declined due to fragmented or poor-quality habitat. Gray and red fox populations have been reduced by habitat loss and competition from the more adaptable and larger coyotes. Similarly, blue-spotted salamanders have decreased in numbers, while tiger salamanders, which can tolerate more habitat disturbance, have fared better.

The state-threatened Blanding’s turtle has also struggled over the past decade, says Thompson. Unlike the still-common painted turtles, Blanding’s turtles move over large areas. This means they can be easily hit by cars or picked off by predators as they attempt to travel through fragmented natural habitats.
Local conservation groups are working hard to help species such as the Blanding’s turtle cope with their changed environment. The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County raises Blanding’s hatchlings in a protected environment, and then releases them to help increase their numbers in the wild. The district is also looking into options such as creating turtle crossings or underpasses to facilitate movement.

Doug Taron, curator of biology at the Notebaert Nature Museum, says that there have also been some interesting developments in the insect world. Adaptability has been a key to success. One example is a butterfly called the Baptisia duskywing. The caterpillars once fed only on the prairie plant Baptisia, but in the 1970s they started feeding on crown vetch, a weed common on roadsides. Since then the butterfly has become increasingly common in the Chicago region.

Taron says some changes in butterfly populations over the past decade could be related to global warming. Since the 1990s, species typically found farther south have appeared in the Chicago region with increasing frequency. For example, the buckeye and the fiery skipper were uncommon in northern Illinois, but are now seen every summer in increasing numbers.

Taron says several other butterfly species have declined, but conservation efforts offer hope. Nature Museum staff members are keeping close tabs on the declining purplish copper, and are working to restore populations of the imperiled swamp metalmark.

Over the next decade, protecting the more sensitive species in the Chicago region will be a growing challenge. For species that are at home in the suburbs, the challenge could be keeping their growing numbers from upsetting the balance in local ecosystems.

—Stephanie Folk

There’s an old adage that says if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Within the past decade, an expansion of volunteer monitoring efforts has helped many Chicago Wilderness partners better steward the region’s flora and fauna—be it grassland birds or grasspink orchids.

For decades, the region’s legions of birdwatchers faithfully recorded the species they saw. What they lacked, however, was a consistent methodology for collecting their data. In 1998, the Bird Conservation Network led a team effort to develop standard protocols and an online database.

A recent analysis of more than 100,000 eBird records reveals that populations of many bird species, particularly grassland birds, are trending downward precipitously. Adjusting management practices based on such data, land managers around the region are witnessing dramatic, site-specific recoveries of some of our most imperiled birds.

Professionals have partnered with citizen-scientists in other realms as well. Susanne Masi, coordinator of the Plants of Concern program, can’t tell you where her volunteers are monitoring rare plants, for fear of tipping off poachers. What she can reveal is that since the program started in 2001, the number of volunteer monitors has increased from 51 to 160; the number of sites monitored has grown from 58 to 192; and the number of different plant species monitored has risen from 44 to 176. Ninety-nine of those are threatened or endangered.

“But the really important thing,” Masi said, “is that in addition to recording the number of plants at each site, monitors identify threats.” In response, land managers have caged plants to keep away deer, altered mowing regimes, and removed invasive species—by far the largest threat to our region’s rare plants.

The region also has monitors focused on frogs, dragonflies, and other groups. The growing number of volunteer monitors—nearly 900 at last count—are the collective eyes and ears of our region. As such, they are often the first line of defense for protecting our native flora and fauna. Here’s to them, looking out on behalf of all of us.

—Arthur Melville Pearson

Over the past decade, the field of environmental education has continued its shift from limited, esoteric coursework to mainstream, interdisciplinary programs. Even a casual survey of high schools and colleges reveals increased courses and degrees in environmental subjects.

Chicago-area institutions are playing their part in this national trend, with the conservation community already feeling the beneficial effects. In 1995, the University of Chicago introduced a B.A. degree program in environmental studies. Northwestern University introduced an interdisciplinary program in environmental science, engineering, and policy in the 1990s, and as of 2005 its students could pursue the nation’s first Master’s of Science degree in plant biology and conservation, contributing directly to conservation projects with the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Universities throughout the Great Lakes are also expanding environmental programs. Graduate students at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment can specialize in areas such as aquatic sciences or policy and planning, while pursuing dual degrees in fields such as law, business, engineering, or public health. At the University of Wisconsin, students in the department of Life Sciences Communications learn to effectively spread the word on conservation.

This interdisciplinary approach has spread to education of the public as well. The Madison, Wisconsin-based Biodiversity Project, founded in 1995, applies public opinion and social science research to building public support for biodiversity conservation. The Chicago Wilderness consortium has used Biodiversity Project materials to train conservation professionals and volunteers.

Conservation groups in the Chicago region have also started to apply psychology to their communication and education efforts. At the Brookfield Zoo, psychologists have participated in the design of exhibits intended to help visitors build a caring relationship with animals and the natural world.

If such trends continue, the next generation of conservation leaders—and the public at large—will have a better chance to bring the passion, knowledge, and tools necessary to take on future environmental challenges.

—Stephanie Folk