Braidwood Sands

It was a model field seminar. On May 26, 2018 a dozen scientists and conservation professionals hiked for hours to review the ecology and management of the Braidwood Sands Area with its 750 plant species in 945 acres of nature preserve within 2,068 protected acres. 

 

Floyd Catchpole and colleagues are restoring 945 acres of sand savanna and prairie nature preserve. 

The invitation to the event, sponsored by the Illinois Native Plant Society, called this tour “the First Annual.” We can hope so. The Society cautioned: “Ticks and chiggers likely” – although we encountered neither. To gently weed out laggards, we were warned that we “must be willing” to walk eight miles cross country “at a moderate pace,” but we were also promised “a semi-civilized lunch.” That lunch was BYO – but with the wonderful amenity that the sponsors would transport our lunches (and any “lawn or camp chairs” we brought) to the trail-side lunch spot, along with a “water igloo.”

Boldly, the invitation continued:

“The Forest Preserve properties have been receiving intensive management since 2010. They certainly needed it, and what you will see is a work in progress. Prior to 2010, the site was primarily managed by burning. This failed to control the already advanced woody invasion in wetlands and savannas.”  

Indeed, several rare plant and animal species have been lost from this important area since the Natural Areas Inventory documented them in 1977. The regal fritillary (a globally rare butterfly) is now gone. Some rare plants are gone from some areas, and these known losses are just indicators. Fragmentation and deteriorating habitat quality are certainly eating away at the gene pool of many species. There is urgency to reverse the trend. 

Trip leader was Will County Forest Preserve ecologist and Land Management Program Coordinator, Floyd Catchpole, who for his Master’s researched bison and fire interactions in Kansas. To make Braidwood plans, he and colleagues studied the geological history, Public Land Survey notes of the early 1800s, and soils. He initiated an intensive campaign to reduce the invasives, focusing on such threats as reed canary grass, common reed, black locust, and oaks (?!). 

He had figured out that, although the site was recognized as rich by the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory in 1977, it had badly degenerated in ways that weren’t at first obvious. The land had become mostly a mix of farm fields and fairly dense woods. Most of the trees were the same black oaks that the 1800’s surveyors found. But then, for the greater sands area in which these preserves lie today, 56% of the land had been prairie and 40% “timber.” The prairie, when this land was "preserved" had been mostly plowed and the timber had been transformed in a very different way, by fire suppression. 

The mean density on the timbered land was 1.7 trees per acre. In other words, most of that “timber” was what we would today call open savanna. Most of the animal and plant heritage of these 2,068 protected acres depends on prairie and savanna conditions, of which precious little was left.

Catchpole’s handouts included detailed research and analysis including the graph below.

Yellow =          Prairie                           (less 1 tree per 10 acres)

Orange =         Open Savanna             (0.1 to 4 trees per acre)

Green =           Closed Savanna           (4-20 trees per acre)

Purple =          Open Woodland          (20-40)

Blue     =          Forest                            (more than 40 trees per acre)

Thus, in an area that is now mostly farm fields and dense woodlots, 96% was savanna and prairie. 

Catchpole started killing oaks. Oaks are wonderful. But there were too many. Some were cut and burned like buckthorn, but that was too expensive to adequately reverse the increases, so he tried “girdling” or “frilling.”  

Most oaks were girdled. There were vastly too many for recovery of the biodiversity. 

The girdling was dramatically cheap and, Catchpole judged, successful.

A stand of girdled cottonwoods is shown below. The birds I noticed the most were eastern towhees and red-headed woodpeckers. Both are species of conservation concern, and both were clearly appreciating the restoration. 

Catchpole reported that these cottonwoods had been girdled six years earlier, and they’re just now starting to fall. How much of a hazard are they?

A prairie and wetland complex had largely been blotted out by silver maples. They’re shown, girdled and dead, below.

The acres of dead maples were impressive. Most "restoration by subtraction" is harder to show. A photo of the absence of reed canary grass doesn't add up to much. 

Trip participant Jeff Butler commented on the girdling from the perspective of one of the people whose job it was to follow up: 

“The group did not get to see any sites that were a mess. Girdled trees in a wetland let in lots of light. The increase in light often leads to invasion of reed canary grass and multiflora rose. Girdled trees, whether standing dead or fallen to the ground, represent hazards or at the least obstacles for anyone doing future management at that site.  A restoration crew needs to treat the area, and those trees will be obstacles for more than 10 years.”

Reed canary had already invaded the open areas of the woods, but expanded with the girdling. That's a standard problem. Ecosystems after major restoration are like patients after major surgery. Highly vulnerable to infection, they need intensive care for intended benefits to turn out as hoped.

Many agencies are now doing this work, notably the National Park Service in Indiana Dunes, state Nature Conservancies, and all the Forest Preserve Districts. At Miller Woods in the Dunes, where the Illinois Native Plant Society also had a field trip, the National Park Service chose to cut great numbers of invasive trees and just let them lay. Initially it was a great mess, but four years later, it was hard to tell they were there.

We discussed. Floyd wanted the feedback. We wanted to learn about his results and impressions. Most of the decisions that need to be made in this kind of work are not well informed by the limited research pool available[1]. 

Our group included a bee expert, a researcher of parasitic plants, and land managers with many score years of combined experience with comparable projects, and all offered questions and insights. One of the most compelling questions for me came from Lou Mule [2] who asked about the future of the movement or community that supports this work. The Will County Forest Preserve District is putting a lot of resources into something that has become understood only in the last few decades. Is the County doing enough to assure that the next generations understand what is needed? We discussed the impressive site and the equally impressive stewardship from many angles. No decisions were made. We grew, and new concepts gestated and percolated.  

 

Our diverse group thought together. It was good. 

More of this kind of sharing is needed. 

A Few Random Bonus Photos And Comments 

It was hot. We rested from time to time in beautiful places. Here, when dense oaks were removed and burned, cream false indigo and many other quality plants emerged. Brown thrashers and great crested flycatchers performed for us. 

Wild lupine and sand puccoon. We watched where we stepped, hating to trample. But when nature is this robust and we are so few, our feet can be buffalo hooves. We saw few indications that other people had been out there. Is that good? 

Sign of the times: Many of us spent a certain amount of time on our phones. But I don't think any of us were watching cat videos. We were taking notes and photos and looking up facts for the discussions. Progress, of a sort, perhaps? 

Endnotes

[1] The discussions at these events don't result in decisions because the questions are too complicated. People discuss hypotheses, experiences, and results anecdotally. Experts from various disciplines offer what they know that might help. It would be great if there were settled science we could turn to, but there isn't. This quandary will be looked at in more detail in an upcoming post about the excellent Poplar Creek field seminar organized by Daniel Suarez, Jenny Flexman, and John Navin.

Girdling was not the major issue it might seem in this account. It was just an easy one to show in photographs. Some of the major questions were: What kind of areas to prioritize for work at a huge complex like this. When to seed and when not. How to get the least damage and most effectiveness from herbicides.  

[2] Lou Mule's name should be spelled with one of those French accent marks over the "e" that encourage you to pronounce the name "mule LAY". (I don't know how to get that mark.)

Lou was referring to the great energy around ecosystem and biodiversity conservation that grew out of the Northern Illinois Prairie Workshops, Morton Arboretum, Illinois Natural Areas Inventory, Volunteer Stewardship Network, and Chicago Wilderness (to name key organizations) and Doug and Dot Wade, Jerry Paulson, Robert Betz, Ray Schulenberg, Floyd Swink, Ron Panzer, Jerry Wilhelm, Marcy DeMauro, Ed Collins, Judy Pollock and many others (to name some folks). During the 80s and early 90s, Chicago conservation was world-wide famous for all this energy. Lou was asking whether those energies would continue strong, or what?

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jeff Butler for all the people photos.  
Thanks to Kathy Garness and Eriko Kojima for proofing.