Pristine Forests of the Shawnee

On a whim Lonnie and I ventured to southern Illinois where we spent a night in a cabin at Giant City State Park.

After dark I stood on the road outside our cabin and played the songs of Barred Owls, Great Horned Owls, Screech Owls, Whip-poor-wills, and Chuck Will's Widows.  Barred Owls responded first followed by Great Horned Owls. Screech Owls were the last to respond.

The next morning after breakfast we walked the park's Indian Creek Trail, hiking through mature, climax-deciduous forest.  We spotted a Tulip Poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera, that was well over 100-feet in height, the tallest tree species that occurs east of the Mississippi River, that is if they germinate and grow in optimum habitat--forested valleys where more moisture is available.

While crossing a creek with crystal clear water, Lonnie asked me why we don't have streams that clear where we live.  The answer involves two factors: first, streams in the Shawnee National Forest are more likely to have rock bottoms; and second, forests, I learned in college, produce the cleanest runoff water. Rain drops first strike a succession of tree leaves on their way to the forest floor where they land with less impact on a layer of leaves from the previous growing season. In comparison, much of the watershed of the Kaskaskia River, which runs through our home county, is farmland with lots of exposed soil that finds its way into streams, rivers, and lakes.

Later in the day we visited the Bald Knob Cross near Alto Pass. Throughout the day we passed through extensive mature forestlands, which I find spiritually cleansing. I found myself missing the relatively pristine mature forests of the Shawnee National Forest, where I spent a lot of time while attending SIU-Carbondale.  

The Farm Pond: An Environmental Analogy

While attending a community college in my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, I took two classes from the same teacher, a man named Keith Blackmore, who was an inspiration for me as I was beginning development as a naturalist.

One day during a series of environmental lessons in Ecology class, he told us the tale of a farmer who had a pond on his land from which his cattle drank. One day he noticed an aquatic plant floating on the surface of his pond. He researched the plant and learned that it doubled in size every day, and getting rid of it would take several days. The plant would also preclude his cattle from drinking. But it was small and his cattle had plenty of space to drink so he went on to other tasks.

A few days later he noticed that the plant was quite a bit larger, covering a greater portion of his pond, but it didn't block his cattle from drinking, so he once again ignored it.

Then one day he was surprised to see that the plant covered half of the pond's surface, and the next day his cattle would not be able to drink. He had ignored the aquatic plant until it became too late.

That's where we are with several environmental issues. Here are just a few.

- Overpopulation: We are crowding out numerous species of wildlife; polluting the air, soil, and water; and run the risk one day of running out of natural resources, particularly food and water. (Keith Blackmore's tongue-in-cheek solution for overpopulation was death for parking violations. But he added that no-one would listen to him.)

- The world's overuse of plastic: A floating pile of plastic garbage lies between California and the Hawaiian Islands that is as large as the State of Texas. But it's cheaper to continue using plastic bags for groceries than environmentally sustainable paper bags, to choose one of numerous examples, so we'll continue using plastic. Besides, the oceans are much larger than Texas.

- Global warming: The research of 96% of the world's scientists is not sufficient to spur action on the part of global warming deniers. Sadly this includes the United States Congress and the Administration.

We are the farmer, and the aquatic plant becomes larger every day that we do nothing. We ignore it at our peril.

In the same Ecology class we learned the requirements for life as we know it. The first was that a planet needs to be the right distance from its sun to sustain liquid water. Next was an atmosphere, followed by plant life. The final requirement was that the dominant form of life must be smart enough to avoid destroying the planet. We haven't shown that we're that smart yet.