(wind blowing) (birds chirping) - [Man] Big old Monarchs in here, and Swallowtails.

- [Man] See the bumble bee here?

(insects chirring) (birds chirping) (grass rustling) (birds singing) (birds chirping) (cars honking) (brakes squealing) (cars honking) - [Narrator] A patch of land in Will County is going through a transformation.

The US Forest Service and Illinois Department of Natural Resources are restoring 1800 acres of countryside to its natural habitat, a prairie.

It's the Midewin National tall grass Prairie located just east of where Interstate 55 crosses the Kankakee River.

But for many years, it was home to 397 earth-covered concrete bunkers built during World War II with the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant.

Munitions were stored in some of the bunkers, while others were used to cure TNT at the 811th Group bunker field.

- They'd be loaded down by rail and unloaded here.

Put in here and when they were the right consistency, the right moisture content, they'd reload them back onto the rail cars, take ''em over to the side east of Illinois Route 53 then Route 66A and assemble 'em into, they'd melt 'em in the load assemble and package plants and pour the liquid TNT into artillery shells, landmines, aerial bombs, whatever they needed 'em for.

- [Narrator] Crews are slowly demolishing the bunkers.

The land, gradually, will be returned to what it was in the 1830s, a woodland fronting and open prairie.

The first settlers could buy land for a dollar and a quarter an acre if they met some government imposed requirements.

- [Man] Part of it would've been that you had some sort of a dwelling or structure on it and that you had crop in the field and that you had some fence up.

- [Narrator] Preparing the land for crops instead of prairie, posed a challenge for early pioneers.

The thick deep prairie roots, some extending more than 15 feet below the surface, made plowing nearly impossible.

John Deere's self-scouring steel plow changed that.

- The problem with the soil, it sticks really a lot.

But he produced a plow which would let that not happen so it wouldn't stick to the plow.

And then, after that, they had the tool they need to plow this prairie up, but they didn't have any way to get the crops long distance from here.

When the railroad cam in, which would've been in the 1850s, then there was an effort to put the tracks in and to get the crops going out of here so they could sell it distant markets.

- [Narrator] The conversion of prairie to cropland had begun.

As row crops expanded, 19th century farmers still needed food for livestock.

Adjacent pastures provided the fodder as well as a new type of home for prairie birds.

- Immediately after the prairies were first tilled under for agriculture, they found a surrogate home in the hayfields and pastures that were quite common in early farms, where farmers were dependent on mules and horses for the power, they needed to have that livestock component.

But it was really after agriculture went on to full on mechanization, in the 20th century, and we saw a steep decline in those hayfields and pastures that that secondary home for prairie birds was lost.

We also see the effects of these losses of grasslands can have impacts on agriculture.

Prairies, that are near to crop fields, support birds that actually go out into soybean fields and feed on insect pests out there and that has an effect on yield of those crop fields.

- [Narrator] In a current day turn of events, row crops soon will help return the land to prairie at Midewin.

But first the Wetlands Initiative burned This 311 acre field to help rid it from unwanted exotic shrubs - (Trevor Edmond) The idea there is to clear some of the invasive species out and then we're gonna farm that section.

Put it into soy bean rotation for two years.

By doing that, we're gonna create ourselves a clean state without exotics ideally.

So that we can plant prairie and have a much more successful long term diverse planting.

- (Narrator) Prairies offer much more then what might be seen at first glance.

They're an interconnected web of insects, mammals, and plants above ground with a symbiotic combination of fungi, annelids, and deep roots below the surface.

- (Mike Miller) There's a huge interrelationship going on between the plants themselves microbes in the soil, fungus, that really all comes together in a unique way to assist.

The plants benefit from that association - (Dan Kirk) All the soil, fungi, and the micro rising fungi and the worms and the native worms They help fertilize that soil and they make air pockets to aerate the soil, same with some of the burrowing mammals.

- (Narrator) This natural mingling of plants animals and fungi is much more prevalent in what is called a remnant prairie or a prairie land that has never been used for other purposes.

On the other hand, a reconstructed prairie has less diversity because of past agricultural practices or other disturbances of the land.

Goose lake Prairie near Morris, Illinois is a patchwork of both remnant and reconstructed prairie.

- (Farmer) A restoration is a remnant prairie that you're trying to help.

A reconstruction you're starting from ground zero.

And no matter how hard you try you will never get everything back Especially if you're trying to do a half acre you just can't do that, it doesn't function as a prairie ecosystem.

That's why it's so hard to recreate a prairie because you can put the plants out but if you don't have the foundation that base that they've evolved with for thousands of years here it's really hard to get them all to understand that they're growing together in a community because they're separated from each other because the microbes aren't there, the fungus isn't there, that kind of ties everything together.

- (Narrator) Whether remnant or reconstruction any prairie provides a wealth of nutrients for a variety of animal life.

- (Farmer) All these seeds are a tremendous food sources because they pack a ton of energy into them so for small mammals for the birds and things like this, this is the food that they're using to get that.

There is a tremendous amount of biomass that's produced on a piece of prairie and that translates into a lot of potential food resources for birds in those areas like really heavy seed production from our native forms that is an important source of food for birds during the migration and through the winter months - (Narrator) The large scale of the Midewin that provides nesting options for birds found nowhere else in the region.

- We're known here for the Loggerhead strike so that is one of the birds that only nest here in abundance We're always monitoring for those birds here it migrates here it uses some of our shrub land prairies for nesting - Certainly on a small scales when we've done grassland restoration project and recreated prairies, the birds have responded to that.

So they take advantages of the habitat while it's still available.

meadowlarks, a lot of those birds are in decline in other places but as we expand our habitat the surveys are showing that we're able to conserve many of those species here at Midewin.

- There are some species that utilize fields like field sparrows and song sparrows that will use a prairie plot that is maybe half an acre or even smaller where as there are other species like upland sand pipers where we wouldn't really expect to see them in any prairie that's smaller then several hundred acres - The development of additional prairie land provides a healthy ecosystem not only for birds, but for many environmentally threatened insects.

- This is real popular with the butterflies and the bees and the seed is just a little tiny seed a little black seed right there.

- We're seeing unprecedented loss of biodiversity throughout North America Stuff that was once common, species of bumblebees that everybody has probable seen at one point in their life, their populations are seriously dropping.

And so by providing native plants we're providing the much needed habitat for these insect species you know, the monarch butterfly is a poster child for the need to have native milkweed for them to survive and milkweed is a native prairie plant - Education and conservative have been coupled together for children at Vale ska Hinton School in Peoria.

The children helped make a butterfly garden next to the school and then watched as 400 caterpillars grew from larvae stage into monarchs in a screened cage in a classroom Teachers helped to release them outside the school Not all the butterflies were ready for extended flights Monarch wings must be fully dry before they make their migration As evidence by this newly release monarch taking in the suns rays.

The hope is they'll find nearby prairies as they start their long trips - (Mike Sucker) This has been declared a Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary.

I don't have as much milkweed here as I'd like but we're trying to plant more and do that because the Monarch's as you know are declining - Members of Meta mora girl scout troop 4563 are helping to monitor the migration habits for Monarch's.

After one girl netted a butterfly, Troy Waldschmidt helped scout Emily Peterson place a tracking tab on the wing of the Monarch.

The dark spot on the wing indicated this one was a male.

The girl's named him Fred.

Emily then released Fred to discover the flowers in Jubilee State Park Prairie The scouts exploration went beyond the relationship between plants and Monarch to prairie plants that help bees.

- This one is called obedient plant and it got it's name from when the pioneer kids used to push the flower to one side and say 'stay' and it would so it go the nickname Obedient plant It's in flower right now and the bees oh man, the bees really love this plant.

- See the yellow on his back legs there?

- Oh I do - Yeah, that's pollen.

- The primary experience for the Girl Scouts was to collect seeds They were looking for plants like False Indigo and Golden Alexander.

- This one here is Rosinweed it's in the Sunflower family and the seeds are on the outside they have little sunflower like kernels - The seeds the scout's collected first first will be stored and then later spread to expand the prairie footprint of Jubilee State Park A volunteer base seed collection program also occurs at the Midewin sight.

And a much larger effort at seed collection takes place at the Mason State Nursery near Topeka in Mason County.

- When a seed gets ripe we hand harvest everything with our labor crew.

They'll go out and pick the seed heads from there, it will all go inside a building it'll get dried down then after the seed is dry we'll run it through any number of different types of cleaning equipment trying to get all of the trash out of it, trying to get the unfilled seeds out of it.

Trying to get the seed down to a pure live seed.

Once harvested and clean, the seeds are kept in cold storage in large barrels.

- They are paper but they have a hard paper in between layers because then the mice won't eat through them then.

- The work crew will harvest about 2,000 pounds a year of clean seeds from 40 species of forb.

An equivalent weight for only four species of tall grass.

- We've seen interest in the tall grass prairie kind of decline there's more interest right now in the shorter grasses the little blue stems the side oats, the drop seeds and there's been a huge interest in the native Orbs or wildflowers and that's primarily due to the Monarch Butterfly habitat restoration that's going on right now - Mason State Nursery sells the seed to the State's Department of Natural Resources and transportation, some federal agencies, and private land owners.

The harvested seeds here descended from seeds harvested years ago by biologists at Remnant prairie's or long railroad grades.

One former railroad right away is now a 100 foot wide, half mile long prairie The Brimful Railroad Prairie Nature Reserve in western Peoria county has more then 100 native species.

The Peoria Auto bond society and the Jubilee Prairie Dogs maintain it.

- The top where the railroad bed was is quite dry and so the dry species tend to like that.

Where as off to the sides where it's sort of ditched, the wet species like that.

- In Northern Peoria county, a group of volunteers working to reconstruct 9 acres of prairie encompassed by trees.

Coal hollow prairie derives it's name from a coal mine set on this land more then a century ago.

When establishing a prairie, there's an initial competition between prairie plants which are perennials, and the annuals and weeds.

- So by basically mowing, we're able to give to those perennials a chance to grow because the perennials in their first two years are basically establishing their roots.

They don't do a lot of top growth, they're basically, all of their energy is going to their roots.

In particular what it does, is it adds a bunch of carbon into the ground because what happens is these roots that these prairie plants have grow down 10, 20 feet into the ground then when the winter comes along they die off.

Those roots die off down to the core roots.

So all those roots now are basically trapped carbon into the soil that's also organic matters.

Now you're adding a lot of organic matter into the soil.

- The establishment of a prairie often requires labor intensive work.

A dibble bar is a simple method to make holes for plants.

In this case, Fox Gloved Bearded Tongue seedlings On the other side of the entrance to the prairie even more labor is involved as invasive plants must be taken out by the roots.

- The pokeweed is really bad when it starts getting into shady conditions and then thistle is really bad in the sunnier conditions so we wanna take those two out and we do that by walking up to them and shoving a shovel into the ground and digging them out.

- All this prairie work is done by volunteers on a property owned by the Archilochus Park District.

- Mike and his volunteer staff do tremendous work, we could never replace what they do but the bottom line is that some point they are not going to be involved at least the original people that started this project are not gonna be involved.

Having us behind them, using our property, having us involved with the development truly is gonna make sure that this property is here for generations to come.

- The restoration of Halloo Prairie includes an unusual obstacle.

The coal company had moved the path of a stream up against the cliff cutting into the base of the cliff and causing erosion.

The volunteers are trying to control the soil loss with plants like Goldenrod, Brown Eyed Susan's and Gray Headed Cone flowers Pioneers found benefit years ago from plants like the Gray Headed Cone flower.

Settlers used it as a room freshener because of it's crisp pungent aroma.

- They'd stick it on the Earth floors because the Earth floor you couldn't clean it so if you got fats, dirt and whatnot it started to get pretty stinky so you'd put this on the floor and you'd step on it and it'd act as a room freshener.

- Prairie's weren't always the dominant landscape in Illinois.

Hardwood forest covered most of the state about 14,000 years ago.

Beginning about 10,000 years ago prairies started to coexist with oak and hickory trees.

A dry period ensued which isn't good for hardwood trees but is better for prairies.

- About the 8,000 to 6,000 time period the prairies were well in the place and they dominated the state.

The main reason the prairies persisted after the climate returned to a wetter environment after the mid scene dry period was fire, and fire is what's required to maintain prairies so wherever you are you have to have extreme dryness that trees can't live on or you have to have fire.

- Here we go - Today, planned burns are set as a reset mechanism restoring the fires that nature historically provided These prescribed burns return nutrients to the soil in a natural process without harming prairie plant roots.

Certain wind speed and humidity levels must exist first before burns occur - We use our trained crews to lay out and develop a burn plan that utilizes fire breaks such as trails or creeks and that allows us to have kind of safe control points to use fire as a tool to keep that understory open and allow the prairie plants to grow.

- The safety measures involve me using 100% professional and industrial gear it's all used for this purpose.

We're wearing all cotton, nothing will melt.

The perimeters are mowed and then I play the wind so that we have a safe burn.

I determine the wind so that our backfire starts into the wind, once we control that aspect of the fire we can then go around and ignite what is called the headwind that turns up into those blackened areas so we don't get it out of control.

So all the vegetation you see out here right now, when that's burned that's reduced down to ash that's gonna fertilize the soil, it makes it black so it warms up earlier in the spring, it starts growing it helps the native prairie compete with a lot of the exotic species - One such invasive is weed canary grass.

An aggressive plant prevalent in the wet prairie at Goose Lake Prairie.

- We have to have the burning here as well as in prairies in order to control the invasive species otherwise this area will soon be grown up with hardwood and other invasive, most of them exotic species we don't want here.

- The type of native species in a prairie is somewhat dependent on the soil moisture.

Wet prairies not surprisingly grow in wet ground like this expanse at Antiquate Nature Preserve in Fulton County.

There are drier tall grass prairies and then there is the grassland in between the two.

It's called a mesic prairie like the one at the Weston Prairie.

They found it a peaceful location for their relatives.

This tradition began in the 1880's with the most recent occurring in the 1950's.

The land is a sanctuary for native vegetation like Goldenrod, Canadian rye grass and the official Illinois prairie grass Big Blue Stem.

The land bordering the site felt the plow long ago.

The reason this 5 acre remnant prairie did not have the same fate may have been due to the stone's sprinkled throughout the grass.

A drive up interstate 55 to the Midewin site yields an entirely different appearance.

The soil depth here is extremely shallow.

- Basically a dolomite prairie is where the bedrock that diabolic limestone is within a meter and a half or less you know, sometimes it's completely at the surface so you're getting a very specific subset of plants that will thrive in that environment .

Different moisture levels then you would other places.

- Leafy prairie clover which looks like small cat tails, can't compete in tall grass prairies.

They are given a foot hole with cages protecting them in the flat dolomite prairie at Midewin.

Prairies are not always found on level or rolling landscapes.

Glacial drift hill prairie's are found only along major rivers like the Mississippi in Illinois.

This prairie is managed by the Peoria park district at Robinson park.

- So this is all Glacial hill It's eroded surface that exposes all the glacial sub soils and that's where the prairies exist.

West to east erosion from water running to the Illinois river valley makes these hills that kind of run east to west.

That gives us a south facing slope and a North facing slope.

So on the south facing slope, most exposure to the sun driest conditions, that's where we see glacial hill remnants remaining.

It's a very hot and dry conditioned and that goes well with prairie plants being established on these south facing slopes.

- When you're starting to see the Scurf and the Side oats grana grass stiff coreopsis and peri clover all together, growing together right next to each other that tells you you're in a glacial drift hill prairie - Of the Peoria park districts 9,000 acres for land, only 15 acres are quality prairie land.

The district hopes to restore 40 more acres in the future.

It won't look anything like what's at San Prairie Scrub Oak Nature Preserve.

Located in Mason county, just a few miles south from the state nursery, it's maintained by the State Department of Natural resources.

Scrub Oak prairies present a completely different type of land scape that includes small oak trees and prickly pear cactus.

- The association here is there's a lot of things you would find farther west then you do here normally speaking badgers the cactus, there are a few things that you find here that you would normally find out in Colorado and New Mexico.

Sand prairie has never been plowed it's got all kinds of native grasses native forb native animals that are associated with the area live there too.

- Woodlands surround many prairies but there is a grassland that is called a Savannah that often acts as a buffer between the forest and pure prairie.

One of the few Savannah's in Illinois is located within Springfield in Peoria.

- You have the same prairie grass as for the most part you have in the prairies but you also have oak trees primarily oak trees here and there.

If you think of Savannah like in Africa you think of Savannah as with a few large trees here and there this is the same so this happens to be more then 50% from the remaining dry mesic Savannah in the state Illinois.

- Prairies and Savannahs offer a home for the many of hundred of species of grasses, mammals birds, fungi and more.

That homeland has experienced a serious contraction.

Illinois, called the prairie state, as early as 1842 once boasted 22 million acres of prairie.

Today it has no more then 2500 acres.

The efforts of a few aim to reverse that trend.

- It's maintaining this native plant species many of which would probably disappear if we didn't have prairies like this.