Conservation Opportunity Areas in Illinois · 2020. 1. 18. · 14 / Outdoor Illinois August 2009 Creating Local Links to the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan. Conservation Opportunity

14 / OutdoorIllinois August 2009

Creating Local Links to the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan.

Conservation OpportunityAreas in Illinois:

Story By David Myers,Matt Whiles and Joel Cross

M ost of their life is spentburrowed deep withinloose, sandy soils, aes-tivating, or sleeping, toescape dry conditions.But once spring rains bring the returnof water to the seasonal wetlands, theyawaken and surface, prepared to start anew generation.

Such is the life of the Illinois chorusfrog (Pseudacris streckeri illinoensis),a 2-inch frog found only in isolatedareas in Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas,and a subspecies of Strecker’s chorusfrog (Pseudacris streckeri).

The Illinois chorus frog is listed asthreatened in the Prairie State becauseof its distinct habitat requirements.Soils having the required characteristicsfor this frog’s life cycle are rare in Illi-nois, and one area where large patchesof these soils exist is in Mason County,near the confluence of the Sangamonand Illinois Rivers. In this heavily agri-cultural area, it is not uncommon tofind ephemeral wetlands that arefarmed during the growing season, butmay have the required habitat compo-nents to support the Illinois chorus frogduring its short time at the surface inearly spring.

The developers of the Illinois Com-prehensive Wildlife Conservation Planand Strategy (see side bar), often calledthe Illinois Wildlife Action Plan, recog-

nized the uniqueness of Mason Coun-ty’s landscape components, and as suchit was proposed as a ConservationOpportunity Area.

Conservation Opportunity Areas areidentified as locations with significantexisting or potential wildlife habitatresources, where partners are willing toplan, implement and evaluate conserva-tion actions, where financial andhuman resources are available, andwhere conservation is motivated by anagreed-upon conservation philosophyand set of objectives.

New populations of the state-

threatened Illinois chorus frog

were located in Menard County

as a result of a Conservation

Opportunity Area partnership.

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Potential Illinoischorus frog habitats

Although this is a fairly complicatedsounding definition, it can be easily bro-ken down to reveal why COAs and thepartnerships in them have the potentialto be so important to the conservationof fish and wildlife in Illinois.

First, COAs have existing or poten-tial wildlife habitat resources. Centering

efforts in areas where threatened andendangered species or other importantwildlife resources already exist is thebest way to preserve them—and hope-fully increase their numbers.

Next, it is important that COAs havefinancial and human resources avail-able. Obviously, fish and wildlife canexist just fine in the complete absenceof people, but will areas where targetwildlife species now exist in a human-modified world remain healthy withoutour intervention? Will target species’numbers increase without manage-ment? In many cases, the answer is no,and having people already interested infish and wildlife conservation in an areais one of the major first steps in suc-cessful management.

Finally, an agreed-upon philosophyamong partners within COAs is essen-tial to getting the maximum benefit outof funding and time dedicated to con-servation. Ideally, this philosophy takesthe form of a statement of goals or asimilar document signed by the part-ners. The statement of goals can be as

August 2009 OutdoorIllinois / 15

Financial andhuman resources

Shared

philosophy

High-quality

Habitat

COA

Local input intothe Wildlife ActionPlan Revisions.

COAPartnership

PartnershipsMore than 150 groups helped

develop the plan.

The focus of the Illinois Wildlife

Action Plan is to identify

wildlife and habitat goals and the

people and resources that will

help reach those goals.

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simple as a list of the fish, wildlife andhabitat issues that are the focus of thepartners’ efforts, or as complex as amanagement plan laying out specifichabitat improvement measures andtimelines. It is within these documentsthat the local land managers have anopportunity to let their needs beknown at the state level. Without thiswindow into the minds of local landmanagers, it is difficult for the DNR andits conservation partners to assess thestatus of resources within the COAsand to fully address local needs.

Local partnerships are the founda-tion that statewide management is builton, and COA partnerships and planningwill be the basis for specific revisionsand updates to the Wildlife Action Planin the coming years. This past year,DNR and Southern Illinois UniversityCarbondale partnered with the help ofa State Wildlife Grant and funding from

The Nature Conservancy to work withthe 32 COAs to help develop partner-ships for each of them, with the ulti-mate goal of eventually generatingmore local input to the Wildlife ActionPlan. The State Wildlife Grant Programdistributes funds from the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service for conservation plan-ning and implementation activitiesaround the state. The COA partnershipproject is now well under way and isbringing together the people andresources associated with each COA tohelp them move forward with focusedconservation efforts.

Partners in the Mason County SandsCOA have been conducting chorusfrog surveys in recent years, whichalso were in part funded through anIllinois State Wildlife grant. Throughinteractions with the COA project,Geographic Information Systems habi-tat models were developed that pre-dicted some areas in Menard County

The Illinois Wildlife Action Plan

The Illinois Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Plan and Strategy, or Illinois Wildlife Action Plan, is much more than justanother resource-specific management plan, but rather defines a strategic vision and specific actions for statewide long-termconservation success. The Wildlife Action Plan was put together through an unprecedented effort that involved more than 150 agen-cies and organizations with vested interests in the fish and wildlife of Illinois. Biologists and sportsmen, educators, bird-watchers andothers worked together to help design a document that reflects the diversity of their interests, and the diverse natural resourcesfound in our state. The Wildlife Action Plan goes beyond the listing of species and recommending courses of action. It acknowledgesthat it is not simple opportunistic habitat creation or restoration, but focused and specific long-term management strategies that arethe way to keep important natural landscapes and the wildlife living on them healthy and flourishing. As such, the Wildlife ActionPlan introduces seven campaigns—streams; forest; farmland and prairie; wetlands; invasive species; land and water stewardship;Green cities—seeking to address the most widespread and urgent issues affecting fish, wildlife and habitat. The campaigns outlinepriority conservation actions, and performance measures to track the effectiveness of the actions. It is recognized that many of theproposed actions already are being implemented on the ground by various organizations, agencies and citizens.

The Wildlife Action Plan recognizes that wildlife is not static. As fish and wildlife populations grow and decline, as invasive speciesbecome established or climate changes alter their ranges, managers have to adapt. It is not only feasible, but probable that less than adecade from now there will be many fish and wildlife management priorities in Illinois that have not yet even been considered.

Truthfully, writing a new management plan for every issue that pops up is a recipe for failure. It forces managers into a reactiverather than proactive strategy, and produces many plans that may be superfluous. This type of redundant planning makes conserva-tion efforts that are usually operating on a limited budget even more difficult.

The Wildlife Action Plan is designed to be adaptable to changing management priorities through periodic revisions. Revi-sions can be as simple as updating databases to reflect current wildlife survey data, or as in-depth as amending the state threat-ened and endangered species lists.

One revision approach explicitly called for in the Wildlife Action Plan is integrating local-scale conservation priorities intoregional management efforts. No one document can reflect the management needs of every corner of the state. The expertise ofthe people doing the actual work of conservation—people on the ground every day—is essential to maintaining a perennially use-ful management plan. Because the developers of the Wildlife Action Plan recognized this fact, county park managers, soil andwater commissions, private wildlife refuge managers and others have ways to “plug in” to the plan and its revision process. One ofthe avenues for reflecting local concerns is through association with one of 32 Illinois Conservation Opportunity Areas.

To learn more about the IllinoisWildlife Action Plan visit www.dnr.state.il.us/ORC/WildlifeResources/theplan/ or www.wildlifeactionplans.org/illinois.html.

Want to get involved? COA Partner-ships are now forming. Contactmembers of local conservation groupsand ask if they are involved. Spreadthe word!

16 / OutdoorIllinois August 2009

ConservationOpportunityAreas

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found at www.dnr.state.il.us/orc/

wildliferesources/theplan.

the state, are an excellent way to attractmore conservation funding. Demon-strating that partnerships are workinglets investors (whether state or federalgovernment or private) know that theirresources are going toward a projectthat has a good chance for success. Thefocused purpose of the COA partner-ships makes each of the partners biggerin the eyes of the conservation fundingprocess, where valid and important

projects may be otherwise lost in themix, simply because of the relativelysmall scale. Furthermore, COA partner-ships put local concerns “on the map”and poised for input when the IllinoisWildlife Action Plan revision processgets under way.

‘‘Never doubtthat a small groupof thoughtful,committed peoplecan change the world.Indeed, it is the onlything that ever has.’’—Margaret Meade

David Myers is the Conservation Oppor-tunity Areas project manager and isbased in Carbondale at Southern IllinoisUniversity. Matt Whiles is a professor inthe Department of Zoology, Center forEcology at Southern Illinois Universityand is director of the Middle MississippiRiver Wetlands Field Station Depart-ment. Joel Cross is acting head of DNR'sWatershed Protection Section, Office ofResource Conservation.

Threatened and endangered

species, including the greater

prairie-chicken, are in critical

need, but many more species are

rare, localized or declining, and

worthy of attention.

Most of the species in greatest

need of conservation, such as the

massasauga, do not require

species-specific conservation

actions, but stewardship geared

towards habitats.

August 2009 OutdoorIllinois / 17

This is just one example of thepotential that COA partnerships hold.Multiple skill sets are brought to thetable (in this case ecologists, resourcemanagers and a GIS specialist) and withthem, new ways of looking at informa-tion that often yields exciting results.Successes in conservation at the locallevel, like the successes in the MasonCounty Sands and other COAs around

(south of Mason County) would meetthe habitat requirements of the Illinoischorus frog. These models were large-ly correct, and frog populations werefound in areas where they were previ-ously not known.

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