Chicago’s wild tale: How fish and birds returned
Humans often wreak havoc on nature, and when they do, wildlife suffers. North America has lost 3 billion birds since 1970, or 1 of every 4. In Illinois, some 20 species, including bats, birds, mussels and insects, are listed as endangered. Habitat loss, pollution and human activity all post a threat to the survival of many creatures.
But just as humans can harm our fellow living things, we can take actions to help them. Given a chance, nature is amazingly resilient.
Bald eagles were once on the verge of extinction, but the United States now has some 14,000 nesting pairs. Grey wolves, which had largely disappeared from the Great Lakes region, have mounted a strong resurgence in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Coyotes make themselves at home throughout Chicago, as became apparent to many residents when they began sheltering in place.
Even in a crowded, highly developed urban environment like this one, wise policies can create precious room for beleaguered species. One such policy was cleaning up the Chicago River, an effort launched by Mayor Richard J. Daley, who envisioned it as a great place for fishing. “People from the Loop could catch fish in the Chicago River and barbecue them on grills we’ll put in lower Wacker Drive,” he said back in the 1970s.
It sounded outlandish at the time. Rick Telander wrote in Sports Illustrated, “An inner-city sludge pot of indeterminate composition and color, the Chicago River had probably housed more cement-encased humans than fish during the last half century.” But the dream has become reality. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District reports that it has found nearly 60 types of fish in the Chicago and Calumet rivers, including such angler favorites as bluegills, largemouth bass and yellow perch. In the early 1980s, there were fewer than 10.
What happened? Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972. The network of Deep Tunnel sewers was built to divert polluted water from the river and Lake Michigan. The city started removing the chlorine it used to treat sewage before putting it into the river. The fish were happy to take advantage of the improvement.
Over on the lakefront is a comeback story that is not only encouraging but downright adorable. Last summer, a pair of piping plovers took up residence on Montrose Beach and produced the first plover chicks hatched in Cook County in more than 60 years. Community stakeholders determined to protect these endangered birds forced the cancellation of a music festival that would have brought tens of thousands of visitors uncomfortably close.
Monty and Rose, as the parents were dubbed, apparently appreciated the consideration, because they returned to Montrose in May and immediately commenced with “courtship behavior. ”After that, nature took its course, and soon, four chicks emerged their shells, though one didn’t survive. Antonio Flores of the Chicago Audubon Society described the winsome offspring as “tiny little cotton balls zooming around on toothpicks.”
They benefited from some human intervention. The Tribune’s Morgan Greene reported that “protective measures were put in place as soon as Monty and Rose laid their eggs. An Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologist placed a cage over their nest to protect the eggs from predators and the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up a camera for monitoring. This year, each chick was banded, allowing the birding organizations to keep a close eye on them as they migrate.”
Such measures would confound many of our forebears, who saw wildlife mainly as food, threat or nuisance. But people have to come to realize that our fellow creatures are indispensable to the health of the earth, and to our own emotional well-being.
Humans can be hard not only on birds, other mammals and fish but on their fellow humans. Amid the coronavirus pandemic and the city’s surge in violent crime, the successes in protecting wild creatures is a reminder that when we set our minds to it, we can curb destructive behavior for the benefit of our fellow Earth dwellers and ourselves.