Wet Muddy Boots in the Prairie

Goose Lake Prairie in Grundy County Illinois is the largest remnant prairie remaining in the state thanks to its unique heterogenous qualities that made it very difficult to manipulate by early settlers and even modern humans today. The prairie system is often thought of as a large expanse of dry grasses, but that is not always the case. Sometimes there are sandy soils, rocky soils, dolomite rocky soils and in this case wet marshy soils in the prairie (Iverson et. al. 2003.)

Goose lake was once a body of water, like everything else in the area, formed by glaciers, and like everything else, manipulated by humans for our own needs. When farming was encroaching on the area, the lake was drained but this prairie with the lining clay underneath, just wouldn’t drain or dry or dry out, making it too much work for the farmers. No one could build on it due to the water not draining but nearby mining companies did strip the land nearby and for a time the clay was pulled from this prairie for human uses, damaging the integrity of the prairie. In 1969 the first tract of this historic prairie was purchased by the state for protection and now it is over 2,500 acres of protected rare habitat (IDNR.)

If you walk through Goose Lake Prairie today you can find the common wet prairie species like hummocks, bluejoint grass, sedges, swamp milkweed, marsh fen, wild blue iris and lady’s slipper orchid (Gustafson et al. 2001.) You can also find rare animal species here like the henslow’s sparrow that nests in the wet grasses or the Southern Plains Bumble bee feeding on the forbes blooming in the prairie (Locascio 2019.) The wet marshes under these grasses provide habitat for amphibians and reptiles that most people will never see, turtles, frogs and salamanders that need the cover of these plants and the shallow waters to breed.

When you walk through this pristine wet prairie, you do need your boots and your feet will get wet most of the times you go through. That is the point of a wet prairie. The landscape goes on for quite a way with very few trees, only in upland mining spoil mounds, as the trees and shrubs don’t grown with wet feet in all that water. The prairie gets regular fire maintenance with prescribed burns to mimic natural lightning strike fires, to keep back woody trees and shrubs, kill off invasives and help to propagate the seeds of the native grasses and forbes (IDNR, Staffen et. al. 2019.)

The state DNR has worked hard to maintain the waterflow through this area, maintaining the integrity of the wet prairie system here. Having a system that doesn’t need to be restored but instead maintained is an amazing jewel for the state to have in it’s possession. The rare grasses, forbes, birds, insects, and reptiles that have always here need to be nurtured, protected, and maintained instead of propagated and introduced (IDNR, Iverson et al. 2003, Staffen et. al. 2019.)

https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/Parks/About/Pages/GooseLakePrairie.aspx

Gustafson, D. J., Gibson, D. J., & Nickrent, D. L. (2001). Characterizing three restored Andropogon gerardii Vitman (big bluestem) populations established with Illinois and non-Illinois seed: established plants and their offspring. Seeds for the Future; Roots of the Past, 116-127.

Iverson, K., & Shypitka, S. (2003). Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory: Bella Vista–Goose Lake Range. Volume 1: Methods, Ecological Descriptions, Results, and Management Recommendations.

Locascio, B. (2019). Assessing the stability and distribution of a newly discovered endangered bumble bee population in Northeastern Illinois.

Staffen, A., O’Connor, R., Johnson, S.E., Shannon, P.D., Kearns, K., Zine, M., Sheehan, M.,

Fleener, J., Panci, H., Volkening, A. 2019. Climate Adaptation Strategies and Approaches for Conservation and Management of Non-Forested Wetlands. Report NFCH-3. USDA Northern Forests Climate Hub. Houghton, MI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Climate Hubs. 41 p.