of Illinois’ Saving Illinois’ RarestAnd so Carter led me up the cliffs 6 / OutdoorIllinois November 2004 overlooking the Mississippi River bot-toms to reveal one of the last surviving

November 2004 OutdoorIllinois / 5

Wildliferesearchers re-establish

the last stands of Illinois’

wood rats.

Saving Illinois’ Rarest

MammalStory and Photos

By Joe McFarland

ment of Zoology. Back in 2001, Carterbegan live-trapping Illinois’ survivingpopulation of eastern wood rats, attach-ing radio transmitters before releasingthem unharmed. Working with DNR and

When the pieces of gravel clat-tered down the face of the cliffthat February morning in 2002,Tim Carter didn’t hesitate to tryto save my life. The 31-year-

old wildlife researcher didn’t even havetime to think. Carter just lunged reflex-ively into the falling rain of gravel andwaited for me to slam into him next.

But I wasn’t falling. “I’m fine,” I announced to him, my fin-

gers still secure on the cliff face wherewe were negotiating our way up. “Justsome loose stones.”

What struck me immediately was thefact a man I’d just met an hour earlier

was willing to risk his own life to savemine. Carter couldn’t have known Iwasn’t tumbling down the cliff at PineHills. There wasn’t time to look up. Hejust shoved his body out there to saveanother life, reacting as a Secret Serviceagent might when a firecracker explodes.

I was impressed. But it also dawnedon me it takes a certain kind of mind tosave a stranger’s life. And that’s wherethis story really begins.

Tim Carter is an associate scientist atSouthern Illinois University’s Depart-

Once relatively common in the forests

of southern Illinois, the small woodland

mammal known as Neotoma floridana

is being reintroduced in areas where

suitable habitat exists.

the U.S. Forest Service, Carter helpeddetermine the status of the wood rat atPine Hills, and would later help intro-duce additional wood rats to add geneticdiversity to the relatively small pool ofthis state-endangered mammal.

Some might argue that what Carterwas doing up on those cliffs didn’t matter,that a creature known as a “pack rat” isn’tworth saving in Illinois. (Some mightargue the same for my own life.) But ascientist reflexively saves any life he orshe encounters, without question, like adetective unwilling to toss out a clue.Who knows, after all, what species mightprove to be essential to us all someday?

And so Carter led me up the cliffs

6 / OutdoorIllinois November 2004

overlooking the Mississippi River bot-toms to reveal one of the last survivingcolonies of Illinois’ rarest mammal.There was a time when this nativespecies, known as Neotoma floridana,occupied rock outcrops and denseforests across the entire southern por-

tion of Illinois, building fort-like dens withsticks, leaves and whatever curiousobjects they collected nearby. Archaeo-logical evidence shows “pack rats” coex-isted with humans here for thousands ofyears. Unfortunately, modern peopleconfuse this native species with the Nor-way rat, that nonnative scourge of urbanalleys and garbage heaps.

“Wood rats aren’t the same,” Cartersaid, holding aloft a cage trap he hadplaced near a den site the night before.“These are woodland mammals that havealways lived here. It’s not as if we’re try-ing to introduce a nonnative species.”

One glance inside the cage revealed arather innocuous-looking mammal whichresembled someone’s pet chinchilla.Harmless enough—rather likable, actually.

Through a recovery plan fundedthrough Federal Aid in Wildlife Restora-tion Program dollars and spearheadedby the Department of NaturalResources with cooperation from theForest Service and Southern IllinoisUniversity, Carter and others travel toneighboring states in search of newgenes. States such as Arkansas, whereNeotoma floridana populations are larg-er, are allowing approximately 100specimens to be live-trapped each yearand subsequently released in Illinois.

Although no prior attempts have

Tim Carter spent two winters

monitoring the remnant population

of wood rats, also known as pack rats,

at Pine Hills in southern Illinois.

Virtually inaccessible cliffs at Pine

Hills proved to be suitable habitat for

surviving populations of Illinois

wood rats. But it made trapping a

rigorous challenge for Carter.

November 2004 OutdoorIllinois / 7

cover,” explained Jack Nawrot, an SIUscientist who studied eastern wood ratsduring the 1970s. “With the populationalready hard hit by the winter of 1912,the winter of 1918 might have reduced(wood rats) to a level from which theyhave yet to recover.”

been made to supplement Illinois’ woodrat population, similar releases in Penn-sylvania and Florida already have metwith success. The goal of the Illinoisprogram is to eventually remove theeastern wood rat from the list of endan-gered mammals in this state.

Researchers previously identified Illi-nois sites where wood rats lived forthousands of years. And while it’sunclear what specifically caused thedecline, one scientist who studiedNeotoma floridana during the 1970ssuspects Mother Nature, opposed tohuman influences, dealt the lethal blow.

“The winters of 1912 and 1918 wereunusually severe in southern Illinois,with extended periods of heavy snow

The four-year recovery project hasreintroduced eastern wood rats inplaces like Garden of the Gods andPounds Hollow within the ShawneeNational Forest. Those sites haven’t hadwood rat populations for decades. Butthey do now, thanks to those who saveendangered lives.

Understanding “Pack Rats”

The eastern wood rat is a nativemammal currently on the list of

state-endangered species. Unlike theNorway rat, which arrived accidentally inNorth America centuries ago, easternwood rats are not city dwellers. They’realso not known to carry diseases thataffect humans; in fact, wood rats are rel-atively disease-free.

The term “pack rat” is often used todescribe these creatures due to theirpeculiar habit of filching whatever inter-esting objects they can carry, thenstashing them in a den. Everything fromturtle shells to deer bones have beenfound in pack-rat dens, along with litterfrom humans past and present. A well-preserved matchbox from the 1930shelped researchers determine that anancient, now-abandoned den in UnionCounty had been inhabited as recentlyas 65 years ago.

Tiny transmitters attached to research

animals could be detected and

tracked during the study of the state’s

rarest mammal.

Live traps placed near den sites

helped researchers collect and

document wood rats at Pine Hills.