Today
Attempts in the 20th century to reintroduce the greater prairie chicken to northeastern Iroquois County failed. State naturalists believe the wildlife area is too wet to be a good home for this species. The IDNR adaptively reused the failed prairie-chicken ground as a place to hunt whitetail deer, doves, pheasants, quail, rabbits, and squirrels. These game activities continue in their respective hunting seasons.
The Iroquois County State Wildlife Area is today a mosaic of sand dunes and wet prairie habitats. The juxtaposition of the sand and wetland has created a rolling savanna landscape of trees and grass, classified as an oak barren. The dominant oak tree is the black oak, often found on relatively infertile, sandy ground. The black-oak savanna is one of the largest native grassland remnants in Illinois. Prairie forbs include the blazing star and hairy puccoon.
Read more about this topic: Iroquois County State Wildlife Area
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“What
Reply can the vast flowering strike from us,
Unless it be the one
You make today in London: to be married?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 19:41.
“Most thoughtful Americans of today seem to have forgotten how strongly their own and immediate predecessors, Emerson, Hawthorne and Whitman, were still preoccupied with the essence behind things.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)