CHAMPAIGN COUNTY– A fierce wind whistles through the tall prairie at Point Pleasant in northern Champaign County as Jason Bleich walks through Middle Fork Forest Preserve. The skies overhead are grey and cloudy as Bleich explains that of all the forest preserves in Champaign County, this is, by far, his favorite.
“Just the amount of restoration and the huge expanses of prairie and wetlands that they’ve got out here,” Bleich said, “It kind of just makes you realize that this is what Illinois looked like 300 years ago.
Bleich, a private lands biologist with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife worries about the ongoing biodiversity crisis that’s leading to species loss worldwide, including here in east-central Illinois.
The Midwest has seen an incredible loss of native prairies and wetlands over the past few centuries. The changes have been driven primarily by farming and urban sprawl. But here in east-central Illinois, Bleich is among those working to bring back native ecosystems.
“Obviously, we’re never going to see Illinois like that again,” he said, “but anytime that we can get these large-scale preserves or state ground where they’re restoring everything to native habitat, that’s a huge win.”
Restoring native ecosystems, one swatch of land at a time
The federal “Partners for Fish and Wildlife” program, which Bleich is part of, tries to bring native habitat back to small parts of the state; what it might have looked like centuries ago.
Bleich collaborates with farmers and landowners to install swatches of native habitat on privately owned land.
“It’s a cost share program where we work with motivated landowners who want to see more wildlife and more conservation on their properties,” Bleich said. “Typically we’ll come in and work with them on doing native prairie restorations or wetland restorations on wet spots. Our program covers a good chunk of the cost for those projects.”
Bleich’s role is the “middleman,” as he called it. He helps landowners figure out their goals in terms of habitat restoration, and connects them with the program that would be best for them.
The partnership between farmer and conservationist may seem unlikely, especially since habitat loss caused by an increase in farmland is one of the leading causes of the biodiversity crisis, according to Peter Goodspeed of the Champaign County Forest Preserve. But such partnerships are happening — and they’re already making an impact.
“You drive around and you’re driving in a sea, or in a desert, I should say, of corn and soybean fields,” Goodspeed said. “There’s less than one tenth of one percent of native remnant tallgrass prairie in existence within the state of Illinois. That’s largely because these deep, rich, black prairie soils make such great soil for growing corn and soybeans.”
Bleich notes that the rapid expansion of the agriculture industry is understandable as a means to feed an ever-growing population. He said the land restoration program works with any amount of land that owners are willing to provide.
The wildlife response has been ‘amazing’
The Fish and Wildlife partnership — and similar initiatives, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Bill conservation program — are already seeing results.
The restoration of prairie and wetlands, even in relatively small habitats, provides native species the opportunity to not only survive, but to thrive.
“As soon as we get a project on the ground, it’s amazing the wildlife response,” Bleich said. “Whether it’s pheasants, quail, turkey, deer, or, with the wetland, waterfowl and shorebirds, because there’s so little habitat in this part of the state, …when we do put a project back on the ground, the wildlife immediately finds it and excels there.”
One landowner seeing results is Ross Sorensen, who has installed native habitat on several properties in the area, including a former hops farm near Loda, about 30 miles north of Champaign in Iroquois County.
Sorensen’s habitats were built through the Farm Bill program, which offers reimbursements to landowners.
The habitat near Loda boasts over 80 acres of conservation land, including a tallgrass prairie, wetlands and pollinator habitat. Sorensen acknowledges that the species haven is probably not popular among his farmer neighbors.
“Some people, I think, probably hate us for it because we live in the middle of Farmersville, and they hate that we’re getting paid to not farm our land,” Sorensen said. “Although this is not primo farmland that we’re doing this on either.”
The former hops farm, with uneven terrain prone to flooding, is far from the best place to grow corn or soybeans, but it has turned into a very successful conservation habitat in the past several years thanks to Sorensen’s work.
“We see tons of shorebirds out here,” said Sorensen. “Some cranes, egrets. We call this wild America out here. There’s bald eagles. I think we just saw a golden eagle a half mile away. Those are all new. [We’re] hearing quail, although not seeing them as much. You can hear them calling at sunset.”
‘No amount of land is too small’
The northern bobwhite quail is currently listed as near-threatened on the Audubon Society’s website, and is one of several species that Bleich is hoping will thrive with the new habitat.
The American golden plover, ring-necked pheasant, and whooping crane, he said, are three species that have already benefited from the restoration of native ecosystems in east-central Illinois. The whooping crane, which has seen its population decimated in this area, is especially a success.
“Go back a couple hundred years ago and we were in the major flyway for whooping cranes,” Bleich said. “I think in the last five years there’s only like 80 left in the whole east half of the country. The population’s starting to rebuild and all these projects that we’re doing only help it to rebuild quicker.”
There are small-scale ways to help native species that anyone can partake in. People can donate to a conservation cause, such as The Nature Conservancy or Pheasants Forever, buy duck stamps or plant butterfly gardens in their yards.
“No amount of land is too small, I guess, to incorporate native habitat, native plants,” Goodspeed said. “When I’m walking around neighborhoods in Champaign-Urbana, I love to see people with native pollinator gardens and things like that in their yards, even if it’s just a really small area.”
The large-scale projects, meanwhile, will continue to provide desperately needed habitat in the area. Bleich estimates that he worked on 18 projects this summer alone, and is already in the process of planning for next summer.
“It’s all a success in one way or another,” Sorensen said. “It may not look the way you thought it would look, but that’s not really your choice anyway, you know? It’s more of: just do your best, observe, iterate, try to do it better. You can’t force Mother Nature into something. You got to work with her as part of this process; it’s trying to figure out where she’s trying to go and meeting her halfway there.”