For two years after we moved to a house beside southwest suburban Palos Woods, we were greeted nearly every morning by the whistling of bobwhite quail.
It has been two decades since we have heard any quail anywhere in those particular forest preserves.
That first year, I took a long walk on an overgrown forest preserve lane, a vestige of the 1920s. Today it has been reduced to a deer path encroached by trees and thorny plants.
On that first walk, just half a mile from home, a cock pheasant erupted beneath my feet beside a two-acre virgin tallgrass prairie hidden in those woods.
Not much of that tallgrass is left these days. A low grove of spiky hawthornes has intruded foot by foot over the years, squeezing out that remnant of ancient natural history.
I haven’t seen a pheasant anywhere in those woods for 25 years–and not because of development. The whole area has remained forest preserves. Unfortunately for certain wildlife, most of these Cook County forests have changed, no longer supporting suitable habitat.
And not just wildlife has suffered from a now discredited hands-off, let-nature-take-its-course philosophy that drove forest preserve mismanagement for 50 years. The glorious spring wildflower displays that once drew thousands of people to forest meadows just can’t be found much anymore.
I used to see certain red wildflowers cluster in the woods near my house. I later learned they were very rare. Well, they have been gone for years now, shaded out by a thickening crown of trees that blocks sunlight from warming and nourishing the forest floor.
Have you ever walked through a forest of mature pines on a logging company’s pine plantation? Nothing else grows on the forest floor. Dry, brown, fallen needles and pine cones cover the ground. There is no food for deer or squirrels. The cones await a cleansing fire to release their seeds, but that fire will not come, suppressed by the justifiably economic concerns of timber managers. Those trees are worth money.
Some of Cook County’s forests now are on the verge of similarly barren conditions. Ninety percent of our native wildflowers have been extirpated. Some have been suppressed by too much shade, others choked by shade-resistant thorny overgrowth or overrun by infestations of unwanted, rampant exotics like garlic mustard. The rest were eaten away by overpopulated herds of protected deer.
It’s funny how we have come to protect deer and trees to the point where their systems are degraded. Just see what we have done to nourish a damaging explosion of Giant Canada geese.
Excessive overgrowth is choking our forest preserves. Not until a cadre of volunteer “stewards,” trained by naturalists under the leadership of a county board run by former President George Dunne, instituted modern rehabilitative management practices did things begin to turn around.
For 20 years, small, experimental nubs of forest were selected for thinning and burning–clearing away decades of neglect and permitting the regrowth of native species. Volunteer crews ranged from the North Branch of the Chicago River to portions of 14,000-acre Palos Woods.
I invite you to look at those areas today. Birds and mammals proliferate along the Chicago River. Wildlife ranges from four species of hawks to beaver and deer.
Palos Woods is a superb example. Areas at Swallow Cliff, Cap Sauer’s Holding and Spears Woods have been revived by the splendid work of volunteers who cut away choking vegetation, burning off weeds and years of debris, recreating long-obliterated meadows, oak savannas and sun-drenched clearings. The resulting diversity of plant life will keep those woods vibrant for generations to come.
In contrast, behold some of the untouched, adjacent areas–dark and sterile, choked with thorns. Which woods are for strolling? The ones that tear your clothes or the sun-dappled open woods bursting into a riot of leaves and color?
Yes, they have killed some trees. Some mature trees happened to be in the way. People clear out vegetation whenever they redo their yards.
While some people abhor the killing of any trees, that has become as necessary to proper forest management as thinning deer or stocking fish. The alternative is an overpowering monoculture.
A disinformation campaign by restoration opponents has misled many good-hearted people and even infected the present county board. The sacrifice of a few hundred trees has been pitted against the health of billions of other trees that will benefit from forest restoration. An unsupported claim that 80 percent of Cook County’s woods are targeted for wholesale clearing is simply balderdash, aimed at inflaming people who have been misled into thinking their beloved woods are being destroyed. What a foolish thing it would be for a forest preserve district merely to contemplate destroying its forests. Yet that false message is promoted–and reported–day after sorrowful day.
In fact, district foresters remove far greater numbers of trees for other purposes annually. And thousands of other trees die naturally every year.
Another “herring” concerns herbicides sprayed or painted on living stumps to prevent regrowth of unwanted trees. Innocent people have been terrified by implications that “poisons” are spread wantonly throughout the woods. In fact, the total use of these common hardware store herbicides amounts to what one greenskeeper might spread on two acres of golf course.
Another “alarm” contends that clearing and burning harms wild bird populations. In truth, the region’s leading ornithologists applaud modern forest management because it enhances bird habitat, supporting an abundance of wildlife.
By quailing before a loud minority of ill-informed activists and one brazenly misled media commentator to obstruct the work of skilled crews for the last two years, County Board President John Stroger has set back several projects and virtually dismantled the volunteer network. Meanwhile, a pitiful lack of respect has been shown for the 61 scientific institutions that ardently support forest preserve restoration (the Field Museum, Morton Arboretum, Chicago Botanic Garden, Brookfield Zoo, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Openlands Project, to name a few). Instead of enjoying the counsel of his scientific community, Stroger caters to the whims of a cadre of animal rightists whose hidden agenda is to punish the Forest Preserve District for allowing the culling of deer.
Now that spring is here and burning and weeding should commence, we’ll be anxious to see if any work gets done this year.
Meanwhile, don’t bother listening for the bobwhite’s whistle. It just isn’t there.
