“Restore a 1,000-acre prairie.”
This directive was given to the Natural Resources Management Department by an ambitious and proactive McHenry County Conservation District Board of Trustees in the early 1980s. The board, realizing that preservation alone was not enough in the protection and recovery of McHenry County’s biodiversity, advocated for restoration of the land.
The process began with the sowing of native seeds to rich prairie soils previously converted for crop production. As funding allows, these former prairies are slowly being reconstructed across the county’s landscape, providing new homes for a variety of wildlife species, including the federally endangered rusty-patched bumblebee.
Globally, about 25% of all plant and animal species are currently threatened, resulting in almost 1 million species flirting with extinction within our current generation’s lifetime. Species such as the federally endangered rusty-patched bumblebee and other pollinating insects have experienced severe population declines as natural areas were eliminated or reduced in size and habitats became more homogenous and degraded. Other factors including the increase of invasive species, pathogens and pesticides contributed to the decline.
Through evaluation of local habitat and these stressors to the rusty-patched bumblebee, MCCD ecologists developed a restoration plan that involved reconstructing prairie and improving woodland habitats to increase the availability of floral resources for pollinators throughout their life cycles. The plan focuses on providing a variety of flowering plants throughout the growing season, but specifically increasing the availability of spring and fall flowers for gynes, or queen bees, which are critical to the success of future colonies. When gynes have enough pollen and nectar resources, they enter hibernation in the fall with sufficient energy supplies to last them through the winter. Gynes also need access to these resources in the spring, when they emerge from hibernation to jump-start their life cycles.
To assist in these efforts, the MCCD, McHenry County Conservation Foundation and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources recently partnered to secure a $250,000 competitive state wildlife grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore and manage 227 acres of critical habitat in southeastern Wisconsin and McHenry County, where the rusty-patched bumblebee is known to inhabit. The project will provide new pollinator habitat in McHenry County by 2026, including the reconstruction of almost 80 acres of prairie and the reintroduction of woodland wildflowers to a 30-acre oak woodland. This partnership across state lines and the connection of previously fragmented habitats is an important step forward.
Despite being federally endangered, there is hope for the rusty-patched bumblebee in McHenry County, as it is responding well to MCCD restoration efforts. Ecologists continue to observe the species during biological surveys of reconstructed prairies across the county, and it sometimes even shows up in local pollinator gardens.
It has been about 40 years since the MCCD’s Natural Resources Management Department was tasked with restoring a 1,000-acre prairie, a goal that at the time seemed lofty. Today, MCCD has reconstructed more than 6,200 acres of prairie and is actively managing 15,500 acres of habitat vital to the survival of at-risk wildlife populations.