In this election year what do we hear from the amphibians?

Bawling, buzzing, bellowing, peeping, barking, clucking, squeaking, squawking, croaking and melodious trills.

Also scattered plops and splashes.

Who's listening?

Volunteers for the Illinois Department of Conservation engaged in the state's third annual frog survey. They have been walking — preferably with a buddy — some 54 frog and toad routes and taking notes on what they hear. They do this once in early spring, once in mid spring and once in early summer. That's because frogs and toads make noises at different times. The western chorus frog doesn't start coming on strong until April, and the bull frog waits until May.

The goal is to cover 65 routes and to do it every year to get powerful cumulative info on the state's amphibians and wetlands.

Such as whether they're still there.

Most frogs are fine-featured

They also have slender limbs.

An exception is the Illinois chorus frog. It is small, fat and stubby, and it's the one species that seems to be declining in Illinois. The chorus frog's range is limited to sandy areas in Mason and Cass counties where it likes to burrow. As a result it suffers when these lands are converted to farming. Plows and chorus frogs don't go together.

What frogs and toads like

Water.

Calm, fairly warm nights with high humidity and maybe a little light drizzle.

What they don't like

Siltation, pesticides.

Loss of habitat.
Source for all of the above: Natural Heritage Division, Department of Conservation.

Pathways through civilization

We need more parks and refuges — the bigger and less fragmented, the better. But they're not enough to preserve native birds and animals in Illinois or anywhere. In the last 20 years the world has lost 11,000 species of birds. We're down to 9,000 today.

Wildlife needs easements to link one natural area with another. Streamside buffers, grass waterways, vegetated fence rows are corridors for survival. So are elevated roads that animals can pass under and fences to protect them from traffic — the greatest menace to survival.
Source: Dr. Larry Harris, University of Florida and the Department of Conservation.

What does a northern crayfish frog sound like?

A giant growling duck.
Source: Department of Conservation tape recording

That's fearsome!

But silence would be scarier.

Rock correction

In the March Stix we misrepresented the Illinois state rock, a high quality Silurian dolomite of the Niagaran series. Although it is true that these dolomites have been in Illinois for about 420 million years, our statement "without incident" is inaccurate. The truth is south suburban rocks closely related to the state stone have seen a heap of trouble and are probably on some kind of FBI list.

Chunks of Silurian dolomite have been thrown more than once at the state militia by angry Illinois quarry workers. When this happened in front of the Lemont train station on May 4, 1885, the soldiers fired back, causing the first Lemont Massacre (the second one was on June 9, 1893). Mancel Talcott, a partner in the Lemont quarry until his death in 1878, was one of the founders of the First National Bank of Chicago. And Albert Parsons, an organizer in the quarry, was one of those accused of inciting the Haymarket Riot. Executed on November 11, 1887, he was posthumously pardoned by Gov. John P. Altgeld.
Source for data on quarry: Nancy Thornton, Lemont Area Historical Society.

Fortified by income tax receipts

At the end of April the general funds balance was $68,057 million. The average daily available balance was $91.236 million. April and May are the months when most of the income tax revenues are deposited.
Source: Office of the Comptroller.

Job surge in April

Nationwide April's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.4 percent, the lowest since 1974. In Illinois it was 7.2 percent, down from 7.3 percent in March.

There were 5.746 million people in the state's civilian labor force in April; 5.332 million people had jobs, an all-time high for the month, and 414,000 people were looking for work. Spring weather gave a boost to construction and outdoor recreation. Nonmanufacturing jobs were at an all-time high in April, and manufacturing jobs were the highest since April 1985. It was the 13th consecutive month that manufacturing employment had shown growth.

The final unemployment rates for February in the state's metro areas were:

Aurora-Elgin, 6.8 percent.
Bloomington-Normal, 5.9 percent.
Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, 5.3 percent.
Chicago, 7.1 percent.
Davenport, Rock Island, Moline (Illinois sector), 9.6 percent.
Decatur, 10.4 percent.
Joliet, 9.5 percent.
Kankakee, 11.7 percent.
Lake County, 5.2 percent.
Peoria, 8.2 percent.
Rockford, 9.0 percent.
Springfield, 6.6 percent.
St. Louis (Illinois sector), 10.6 percent.
Source: Department of Employment Security.

Margaret S. Knoepfle

June 1988 | Illinois Issues | 6