The Conservation Foundation has been awarded a nearly $250,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to create and improve monarch butterfly habitat along the Fox River.

The Fox Valley Monarch Corridor Project, led by The Conservation Foundation, is a collaborative partnership between 12 public and private land organizations that include:

• Barrington Area Conservation Trust
• Campton Township 
• Conserve Lake County
• Dundee Township
• Fermilab Natural Areas
• Forest Preserve District of DuPage County
• Forest Preserve District of Kendall County
• Forest Preserve District of Kane County
• Fox Valley Park District
• Land Conservancy of McHenry County
• Oswegoland Park District

“We’re very happy to bring all these organizations together to do such important work,” said Dan Lobbes, The Conservation Foundation director of land preservation. “It takes all of us working together to make a significant, lasting difference for the monarchs and for us all.”

Matching contributions by the participating organizations, which extend across six counties, total nearly $600,000.

The Conservation Foundation is one of 22 nonprofit conservation organizations, government agencies, and other stakeholders to receive an award. A total of $3 million in grants was awarded by NFWS and ultimately will bring nearly $6 million more in matching contributions for the project.

The Fox Valley Monarch Corridor extends over 975 acres and will include the establishment and restoration of 10 multi-acre sites and hundreds of “stepping stone” sites on private land that will connect breeding and migration habitats of monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

In addition to the large natural areas targeted, the project will increase the presence of milkweed in neighborhood yards and local business campuses to help link the pollinators to the larger areas during their migration through the area. Milkweed is essential for monarch survival as their main food source and where they lay eggs.

An important part of the success of the project is engaging more residents in the Conservation @Home and Conservation@Work programs offered by The Conservation Foundation to conserve rain water and create native wildlife habitats that incorporate milkweed plants.

Work is expected to begin in early 2017, and must be completed within the two-year grant award period in 2019.

The grant is funded by the Monarch Butterfly Conservation Fund, and financially supported by Monsanto Company; U.S. Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Geological Survey; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and U.S. Forest Service.

For more information on the Monarch Butterfly Conservation Fund, go to the National Fish and Wildlife Fund website at nfwf.org.  

The Conservation Foundation, headquartered in Naperville, is one of the region’s oldest and largest not-for-profit land and watershed conservation organizations. Since it was founded in 1972, TCF has helped preserve nearly 33,000 acres of open space, restored and cleaned miles of rivers and streams, and educated thousands of kids by engaging them in nature and the outdoors.

Work is focused in DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will Counties to preserve and restore nature in your neighborhood. Find out more at theconservationfoundation.org.

On behalf of the Illinois Audubon Society’s Board of Directors, I am pleased to announce that we have selected Dr. James Herkert as our new Executive Director. Jim will officially join us on October 17, 2016.

We had a rich pool of applicants for this position, but Jim stood out because of his 25 years of diverse conservation experience including work for a major non-profit conservation organization, a state agency, and a Governor-appointed board. 

Jim has served as Director of the Office of Resource Conservation for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources since 2009, leading an office of over 240 resource professionals with an annual budget of over $50 million. He previously spent eight years with The Nature Conservancy, Illinois, including six as Director of Conservation Science, and 11 years on the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board.

Jim is also a nationally recognized authority on grassland birds that breed in the Midwest, with published scientific papers on the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on grassland species, and is active in the American Ornithologists’ Union. He earned a Master’s degree in Biology from Illinois State University and a Ph.D in Ecology, Ethology and Evolution at University of Illinois-Champaign.

We feel confident that Jim’s knowledge, stewardship skills, familiarity with non-profit conservation organizations and Illinois constituent groups, and experience with conservation partnerships involving state, federal and NGO partners are a good match for our mission, staff and members. 

Please join me in welcoming Jim as he leads us into the next chapter in Illinois Audubon Society’s history.

Shelly Knuppel
President, Illinois Audubon Society Board of Directors

Fishers & Farmers Partnership (FFP) for the Upper Mississippi River Basin, a fish habitat partnership, is seeking project proposals to benefit aquatic habitat in Mississippi River basin streams.

Federal funding may be available under the National Fish Habitat Partnership through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to fund the top ranked proposals.  Priority watersheds are listed, but proposals outside of those watersheds will be considered.

For more details, see the RFP here.

Prairie State Conservation Coalition of Illinois is happy to announce the release of I-View —  a free web-based application and viewer showing, for the first time, all natural lands protected in the state of Illinois.

I-View will significantly enhance the ability of conservation organizations, private and public, to do conservation throughout the state. PSCC will own, operate, and update the site on a continuous basis.

I-View fulfills an identified critical need for accomplishing the goals of the state’s Illinois Wildlife Action Plan, Chicago Wilderness’ Green Infrastructure Vision, Grand Victoria Foundation’s Vital Lands Illinois, and other local and statewide initiatives that share the goal of establishing an interconnected system of Illinois protected natural lands and waters. With I-View, future land acquisition and current management can be coordinated across ownership categories for the first time at a landscape ecological scale.

I-View was made possible by grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation (ICEF) and the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, both based in Chicago, with support from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The I-View team is composed of Angelo Capparella, associate professor, Illinois State University; Lisa Haderlein, executive director, The Land Conservancy of McHenry County; David Holman, GIS Consultant; and Gretchen Knapp, adjunct professor, Illinois State University. Holman did the bulk of the technical work assembling the data and producing the web-viewer site found here.

“We were particularly impressed by the aspects of the project likely to lead to on-the-ground results by assisting users to identify and protect important connections between existing natural areas,” ICECF Executive Director Dennis O’Brien said.

“Most important is the comprehensive and live nature of the data,” Craig Shillinglaw of Chicago’s Openlands said. “It will undoubtedly lead to more cooperation and identification of opportunities throughout the conservation community in Illinois.”

The majority of mapped lands, more than10,000 parcels, met three criteria: (1) natural or restorable to natural condition, (2) permanently protected, and (3) primary purpose as a natural area. Ownership categories include the coalition of nonprofit conservation land trusts represented by PSCC, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, forest preserve and conservation districts, and others.

In addition to the maps, a click on any parcel reveals key data such as acreage, owner, etc. Other map layers provided can be layered to provide information on topography, watersheds, natural divisions and even legislative district. Especially important are the features enabling the creation of custom maps for a wide variety of purposes.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources, along with partners representing agriculture, transportation or utility rights-of-way, conservation lands, urban, and educational sectors are working to develop a plan to increase monarch butterfly habitat in Illinois.

A first step is to identify ongoing monarch conservation efforts so that we can better coordinate among them to create more butterfly habitat where it is needed.  Following is a link to a survey has been developed to capture all of the diverse activities that are occurring for monarch butterfly conservation throughout Illinois.

The online survey, which should take no more than 20 minutes to complete, is accessible through this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ILMonarchsurvey.  If you have an active Monarch  conservation program, you will answer no more than 25 questions. For diverse organizations, please designate no more than one person per unit or program to complete the survey.

We encourage you to forward the survey link to other colleagues that may interested in filling it out.  Anyone interested in participating in the survey should complete it by June 17.  We look forward to sharing the results of the survey with you.

The survey development team thanks you in advance for your participation!

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service accepted a 66-acre donation of land from Friends of the Kankakee to officially establish the Kankakee National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area.

This became official on Wednesday, May 25, 2016 and becomes the nation’s 564th national wildlife refuge.

You can read more here on the FAQ sheet, and here’s the official issued news release.

Such great news!

The Calumet region in northeast Illinois is not considered the most fertile area, given its long industrial history. Yet there are some persistent sedges that have thrived amidst the toxic leftovers.

The Field Museum blog tells about efforts to save these rare, endangered Illinois plants.

This article mentions a few beautiful places around the great state of Illinois that make perfect weekend or day trips for everyone!

11 Places In Illinois You Thought Only Existed In Your Imagination

Also check out the tours available on our Hike App as we head into summer.

The 2016 Illinois Fishing Information guide is available in PDF format through the IDNR website in both English and Spanish versions by clicking here. Regulations in the guide are effective April 1 through March 31, 2017. A reminder to anglers, and would-be anglers, that Illinois Free Fishing Days for 2016 are June 17-20, during the Father’s Day weekend.