It came as some surprise in these quarters, and we suppose in afew others, that outside of the Shawnee National Forest at the farsouthern tip of Illinois, the Chicago area is the largest safe harborfor the state's endangered and threatened species.
What with all the bulldozing and paving over of the landscape socharacteristic of these parts, it would seem that it should be prettytough going here for lady slippers, loggerhead shrikes and Cooper'shawks.
In fact, the habitat is a lot more dangerous for such species inthe vast middle regions of the state, where some of the best farmlandin the nation has have been plowed over and under for years. AsSun-Times nature writer K. O. Dawes explained, the habitats wereretained here and in far southern Illinois because of the untillableland, undrained wetlands and far-sighted open space acquisitions.
So, here's a well-done for those who have labored in Cook andother counties to acquire the forest preserves and other open space.
But there also is a message in this. As development inevitablycontinues in the Chicago area, especially after the recession, itbecomes all the more important that economic benefits of the newhomes, offices and malls be balanced with the need to preserve plantand animal species which, most of us assumed, could readily surviveDownstate.
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