Let me congratulate the Tribune and writer Peter Kendall for printing the facts regarding the legislation to remove species from the Illinois Endangered and Threatened Species List. Allowing politically connected developers and uninformed legislators to make decisions regarding a scientific process is poor government at best; at worst, it is unethical.
Several years ago, former Gov. Jim Edgar commissioned a Critical Trends Assessment survey, which was a joint project between many state agencies including the Illinois Department of Energy & Natural Resources. This report reached three conclusions. Conclusion No. 2 reads as follows: “Existing data suggest that the condition of natural ecosystems in Illinois is rapidly declining as a result of fragmentation and continual stress.”
The Critical Trends Assessment noted that one-hundredth of 1 percent of high-quality prairie habitat survives in Illinois. The massasauga rattlesnake depends on this remaining tiny slice of wet prairie habitat.
Special interest groups, developers and politicians continue to threaten the few remaining acres of prairie habitat, including both the massasauga snake/Carlyle Lake site and Green River State Wildlife Area, which is home to 13 endangered and threatened species.
