Go to the Main Inventory.
The Chicago Region Biodiversity Council is a collaboration of more than 100
organizations, dedicated to the protection, restoration, and stewardship of
the natural communities of the Chicago region through fostering their
compatibility with the human communities whose lives they enrich.
The overall goal of this project is to provide the best available
information on significant reservoirs of biodiversity, and land and water
protection and management priorities, in the Fox River Watershed portion of
the Chicago Wilderness region. To achieve this, project participants were
asked to supply information on sites and streams which fit under any of the
criteria listed below.
1. All natural areas containing grade C or better examples of natural
communities, no minimum size limits;
2. Any site containing at least one state endangered or threatened species;
3. All streams classified to date by the IDNR as A or B quality;
4. All ecologically significant public open space areas actively or
potentially restorable to natural communities;
5. Ecologically “special” areas, as determined by individual
participants—examples include outstanding geological features; outstanding
archaeological sites; large grasslands, even Eurasian, supporting declining
prairie bird communities; heron rookeries; reptile hibernacula; areas with
Federal Category 2 species not listed as E/T/W in Illinois (e.g. Blanding’s
turtle); Illinois watch list species locations;
6. Biological corridors linking other features entered;
7. Buffer land for protection or expansion of known natural features.
Information on biodiverse areas of the Fox River watershed was translated
into visual maps showing the locations of the inventoried sites and streams.
These sites and streams are linked to a database which contains information
on natural communities, threatened and endangered species, protection
status, and management concerns. These files were originally available on
CD-ROM as GIS files, but are made available here as HTML webpages and JPEG
images of the boundaries of those sites overlaid on a USGS 1:24,000 backdrop
for use by those lacking technology for viewing GIS files.
Information provided in these files includes:
1. Location by township/range/section;
2. Size (length in miles for streams, acres for sites);
3. Natural resources, including communities, rare plants, rare animals, and
other significant features (see Item 5 above);
4. Protection status;
5. Management concerns;
6. A copy of a USGS 7.5’ topographic map showing the boundaries of the site.
Contributors were asked to draw the boundaries of sites liberally and
include all land and water deemed necessary to: a) guarantee protection of
the natural feature(s) illustrated, or b) design an ecologically viable
restored area. The concept of preserve design was considered an essential
element of this project.
The maps and information here represent the final product of the “Fox River
Watershed Biodiversity Inventory, Phase Two—GIS Development.” This project
was made possible through a grant agreement with the Illinois Conservation
Foundation; funding for the entire project was made available to the Chicago
Wilderness Project Coalition through the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
The biodiversity information included here was compiled and provided through
the cooperation of the following agencies and organizations:
Conservation Research Institute
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Forest Preserve District of DuPage County
Forest Preserve District of Kane County
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
Illinois Nature Preserves Commission
Lake County Forest Preserves
McHenry County Conservation District
St. Charles Park District
The Nature Conservancy
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
