MIKE MILLER

In Illinois, the prairie state, finding prairies can be a real challenge. Over 99.99% of Illinois native prairie has been destroyed. Most prairie has been converted to agriculture. The areas that were too hilly to plough or too dry or too wet to grow crops are almost all that remain.

Some people have dedicated their lives to finding these last beautiful remnants of ancient Illinois. To seek out the gems among the cornstalks has been the life work of Illinois botanist John White.

Fresh out of college, John was hired by George Fell from The Natural Land Institute (NLI) in the late 1960s and tasked with a monumental project: go out into the wilds of Illinois and systematically document the last remnant prairies and natural areas in the state. John put together what would be known as the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory (INAI). It was a list of the “last of the best” places. Rare refuges of native biodiversity. Without John White’s hard work, we wouldn’t know just how little remaining prairie there is left. Knowledge is sometimes a scary thing.

Aldo Leopold wrote in a Sand County Almanac, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”

I imagine John White knows this all too well. Thanks to his work, many of those rare habitats have been saved and dedicated as Illinois State Nature Preserves. Unfortunately, many have not been protected and are in peril.

One would think that with so little prairie left, the willpower to save those that remain wouldn’t be a difficult task. Yet even today, sites that were listed on the INAI are being destroyed. Bell Bowl Prairie is the latest prairie threatened by the bulldozer. It is a high quality, 5-acre, dry gravel prairie in Rockford, Illinois. It is on the property of the Chicago Rockford International Airport, and smack-dab in the middle of an airport expansion project. Bell Bowl Prairie has existed on this earth since the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age. It is home to state endangered plants such as the Large-flowered Penstemon (Penstemon grandifloras), and the Prairie False Dandelion (Nothocalais cuspidata). Numerous state endangered bird species also use the site including Loggerhead Shrike and Upland Sandpiper. It is also home to the federally endangered Rusty Patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis). In all of Illinois, only 45 acres of high-quality dry gravel prairies remain, and Bell Bowl is the only example of this type of prairie in this region of the state. It is truly the last of its kind in existence.

This is not the first time Bell Bowl was threatened with destruction. In 1968, an airport expansion project was slated to happen here. It was George Fell (who later hired John White), who saved the prairie. The story goes that he sweet-talked the bulldozer operator to give him the afternoon before continuing his work. That afternoon, George convinced then-Illinois Gov. Samuel Shapiro to halt the project. The Governor wrote a telegram to the airport authority board asking them to come up with an alternative plan that preserved the prairie. They did, and for close to 50 years, Bell Bowl Prairie was allowed to exist.

As if we haven’t learned from the error of our ways. A few years back another airport expansion plan was drafted that included the destruction of the Bell Bowl Prairie. A draft environmental assessment was conducted, and according to prairie enthusiasts, “quietly ran through the channels.” It was so quiet that few even knew that the prairie’s destruction was imminent. Even the Natural Lands Institute, whose former leader George Fell saved the prairie in 1968, didn’t know of the threat. Somehow, the fact that the destruction of this prairie was being planned was kept away from those who understand the rarity of this prairie. It wasn’t until volunteers found Rusty Patched Bumble Bees, a Federally Endangered Species, using the prairie this summer, that the prairie’s destruction became more widely known.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stepped in and made it known that construction on Bell Bowl Prairie couldn’t happen while the endangered bumble bees are on flowers. Basically, if the prairie was going to be destroyed, it had to be destroyed when bees are hibernating for the winter. Never mind the fact that bees hibernate below ground in prairies. Out of sight, out of mind.

Botanist John White and his wife Barbara visit Bell Bowl Prairie. He was on his way to a Greater Rockford Airport Authority meeting on Sept. 23 to advocate for preservation of this rare dry gravel prairie that has been in existence since retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age. (PHOTO BY JONI DENKER)

On Sept. 23, John White left his home in Champaign and drove to Rockford. He was carrying on the tradition of his mentor George Fell. He was going to a meeting of the Greater Rockford Airport Authority. On his way, he went to Bell Bowl Prairie. He walks in a world of wounds. How poignant it must be to have the knowledge of all the good places that survive in the state of Illinois, only to see, time and time again, that they are still being destroyed. He gave an impassioned plea to the members of the airport authority. He was told that the prairie could be dug up and simply moved. His response:

“It is impossible to move a piece of prairie and keep it intact. Transplanting any part of Bell Bowl Prairie would be an exercise in futility, not a viable option. It would be taking the living equivalent of the most intricate, exquisite stained glass church window, shattering it, casting the shards on the ground, and then hoping that it will reassemble itself.”

The stay of execution for the Bell Bowl Prairie will end on Nov. 1. At that time, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the prairie can be destroyed without openly harming Rusty Patch Bumble Bees.

I guess any hibernating queens below ground can be written off as “incidental take.” But beyond the threat to an individual species of bee, regardless of its rarity, we should hold an even higher standard for rare habitats. Bell Bowl is itself an Endangered Organism. It is the last living example of a dry gravel prairie in the Rockford region. It does not, and cannot, exist anywhere other than the earth it presently occupies. It was possible to save it 50 years ago. It is still possible today. We have that responsibility to future generations.

To find out more about the efforts to Save Bell Bowl Prairie, and learn how you can be a part of the process, please visit www.savebellbowlprairie.org. This effort needs voices from across the state to stand up and demand that we be better stewards of the few remaining examples of our collective natural heritage. Once they are destroyed, they can never be brought back.