The state of the Illinois Prairie

Full episode

State of Change 2025 looks at efforts to retain existing prairie in Illinois, as well as strategies to restore some areas to a more natural state. According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, in the nineteenth century, Illinois was covered in 22-million acres of grassland. By 1978, less than 2,300 acres remained. Emmy winning host and producer Tinisha Spain hosted this year’s State of Change from the Loda Cemetery Prairie Nature Preserve in Iroquois County, Illinois. Other than mowing, the land has not been cultivated and is one of the few places you can still find the original tallgrass prairie in Illinois.

State of Change 2025 airs Thursday, November 13 at 7:00 p.m. on WILL-TV. It will also be available on the Illinois Public Media YouTube Channel and the PBS App. Production funding for this program is provided by the Backlund Charitable Trust.

Northern Illinois… where wild bison roam and restore the prairie again

State of Change 2025 traveled to the Nachusa Grasslands in Lee County, where wild bison roam. We learned how bison and fires naturally restore and maintain the tallgrass prairie. We talked with University of Illinois professor of history Rosalyn LaPier about bison, the prairie, and Indigenous communities. The following is a transcript of the story:

Bill Kleiman, Nachusa Grassland Director: Bison have been on this continent for eons, for millions of years. In the 1800s we went from tens of millions of animals down to near zero. Bison have been in Illinois for thousands of years. They've been across all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. They were pushed out of the Midwest in the 1830s the animals we brought back to Nachusa grasslands is the first, or one of the first, conservation herds east of the Mississippi River.

Mark Herman, Volunteer: We have 4200 acres of prairie here and woodlands and wetlands, but we only fenced 1500 of it for the bison to be housed in. We have about 120 bison or so in the herd right now. We fenced off 1500 acres. And so basically you're giving them about 10 acres per bison, is what the carrying capacity is. So they were brought here in 2014 to complete the ecosystem.

Kleiman: Illinois was mostly prairie, so grassland with oak savannas, extensive wetlands, beautiful oak woodlands, and we now have less than one-tenth of one percent of the original prairie is in Illinois now. Bison are the keystone grazer of North America.

Tyler Pellegrini, Restoration Ecologist: They graze selectively. So they'll go through and eat grasses. They have some favorites, and it's easy to see a prairie restoration dominated by tall grasses. And they'll go through eat that grass down. They disturb the ground with their hooves. They'll eat the eat the vegetation. Their droppings speed up that nutrient cycle, so it turns that grass back into organic matter, into the soil, which provides food for like dung beetles, so certain insects.

Herman: They're eating around the flowers, opening it up for more sunlight and allowing more types of plants to grow, and keeping the tall grass from dominating the prairie here. But the bison are keeping it shorter and opening up, making more diversity. You can see we got lots of different flowers growing right now, and lots of different species, and that is what we want. Diversity is what it's all about.

Pellegrini: They're wallows, where they roll in the ground, stick their feet up in the air and disturb the ground and get dirt and sand all over themselves. Those create these little micro habitats that end up filling with water sometimes, and creates little spots for amphibians and insects to breed and live in.

Kleiman: Bison grazing creates habitats that are sometimes less dominated by thick grass. So, a species like a grasshopper sparrow, which nests on the ground and likes that more sparse vegetation, it ends up able to nest successfully in a grazed area. From bison, we can say things like bison increase plant diversity. Bison support various grassland birds that have had steep declines, and yet they do better in bison grazed areas. These are some of the success stories of bison.

Herman: Bison are a keystone species, meaning they interact with everyone. They are spreading seeds constantly. They're spreading microbes. They are affecting the insect community. Birds use their fur to make nests. I read a stat that said the fur from one bison, when he sheds it in the spring, is enough for over thousand bird nests.

Rosalyn LaPier, Indigenous writer/envrionmental historian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: The previous ancestors to that bison have long gone extinct because it evolved as its own separate species ten thosuand years ago. It is something then we know that humans were already here ten thousand years ago. Majority of native people are native tribes where bison was kind of an ever-present species or an animal. Those tribes, over time, developed religion and religious practice centered around those particular bison. Most of those tribes, for example, have a mythology, or mythological story that talks about how bison came to be here in North America, some tribes think of bison as their kin, or relatives. Some tribes think of them as a sacred icon, meaning that they're a deity. This mythological history of bison that I feel like this. Revitalization is happening as well. So, I think that that's something that is important for our native communities. But I also think in terms of the diversity of human societies, I think it's important that when people reestablish and revitalize their religion and their culture that it benefits not just them, but it benefits the world.

Bernie Buchholz, Volunteer: You're given the opportunity to really create. I never talk about the Garden of Eden, but that's what comes to mind, a garden of native species, and we're given the habitat and the opportunity to go make that happen. The whole thing is just like this amazing natural puzzle, and in the process, you get to create this wonderful habitat that everybody can enjoy.

Kleiman: The balance to strike is that we need enough habitat to care for the rare things that are here. A tenth of one percent of habitat is not enough, so hence we're here trying to create new habitat. The balance needs to be towards being good stewards of the land and creating enough habitat that species can continue to thrive.

LaPier: I think that one of the things that a lot of communities are interested in, especially communities that have had a huge impact, by development, by farming, by agriculture, that they want to reestablish natural systems and ecosystems, that one of the animals that was part of that is bison.

Kleiman: People are very excited when they see bison. They come all the way across the state to see our herd. The animals always charm, if you can get close enough, and people will watch them for a long time. We have about 75,000 visitors a year. We're trying to take advantage of that enthusiasm and tell the whole story of conservation about the work we're doing with prescribed fire, seed harvesting, habitat restoration, so bison are the hook, and then we're trying to tell the whole story.

Why saving the bees saves us all

On a warm afternoon in May 2025, Prairie Gardens nursery in Champaign is packed with people searching for the perfect plants. Meanwhile, a class gets underway in one of the greenhouses.

“My dad gardened a lot and always enstilled that connection with the Earth to me," said 20-year master gardener Heather Miller to a class of around 20 people.

Today, she showed this class how to plant pollinator pockets… communities that house and feed the insects that spread pollen.

“There’s approximately 500 bee species in the state of Illinois," said Miller. "And so we want to be sure people understand the importance of different pollinators and how we can support those. There’s one honeybee. Those were brought over by the Europeans about 400 years ago. As what we would call sort of the 'workhouse' bees that would help us with the agricultural production.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 100 American crops rely on pollinators to grow. The added value from these tiny, winged insects is $18-billion. But their populations are in trouble.

“They are in decline, we don't understand fully why," said Miller. "There's lots of different factors from obviously environmental loss with urbanization, there's different pests like mites and other things that are causing colony collapses.”

Another factor… much of Illinois’ original prairie has disappeared.  

“So those tall grass prairies are really important to overwintering of pollinators, as well as obviously a food source. And [it's] their apartment. Its where they go to live. They need some place to go."

On this day, amateur gardeners got their hands dirty and learned how to attract pollinating insects with colorful Marigolds and other plants.

A few weeks later on a sunny Saturday in June, Miller demonstrated how all the work pays off by opening up her backyard to strangers. She said bees and other pollinating insects appeared with days of planting Echinacea, Tubular and Hydrangea plants. Just like people who work in the sun, bees need a place to hydrate after hours of hard work.

“We have our bee water over here, so you can look here," said Miller as she pointed to a dish filled with bright colorful marbles that bees land on as they drink fresh water. "Bee water is very important for our pollinators and they often times don’t have a place to go for water where they won’t drown. So it’s really important to have something they can light on, which is the marbles, and then you feed it and they can get to the water without drowning.”

Each place you look in Miller's yard is a plant that can feed or house a pollinating insect. She put years of work into her yard and teaching others. Her motivation is simple.

“We don’t think about how valuable they are to us as little things just running around," said Miller. "Pollinators provided pollination to over 1400 crops around the world. We don’t eat if we don’t have pollinators.”

Click here to learn more about how to plant pollinator pockets from the University of Illinois Extension.

Turning a Springfield garden back to the 19th century

Just outside the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a once-ordinary city park has transformed into a vibrant living landscape. A nod to both Illinois’ natural history and its most famous residents, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln and their family.

“By next spring, all of this will start to bloom, and you’ll see a burst of color,” said Dorothy Hutchinson-Gross, Facilities and Sustainability Director for the museum. She’s talking about the newly revitalized Union Square Park — now home to more than 9,000 native plants that paint the grounds with the colors of the Illinois prairie.

Illinois in the 1800s looked far different from today. Most of our state was covered with grasses, trees, and flowers perfectly adapted to the local climate and soil conditions. Those same plants from an early and pre-settled Illinois are now at the heart of a new project designed to restore a piece of that heritage.

“Union Square Park has always been a nice place for people to visit when they’re in Springfield,” Hutchinson-Gross explained. “But it needed a little sprucing up. We started working on a long-term project to recreate the park using sustainable and native plants — like it would have been in the 1850s when the Lincolns lived here.”

Although the flowers that were chosen are beautiful, that’s not the only reason they were selected. Native plants thrive in Illinois’ conditions, require less water, and demand minimal maintenance. They’re a sustainable alternative to traditional landscaping, and they tell a story that’s uniquely Midwestern.

“They take less water, need less maintenance, and they’ll thrive a lot better than plants that are not native to the area,” said Hutchinson-Gross.

In spring 2025, the transformation began. After weeks of construction and careful planting — with guidance from the University of Illinois Extension — Union Square Park became home to thousands of native species. The team carefully selected plants that early settlers and even the Lincolns themselves might have recognized.

“We worked with the U of I Extension office and our landscaper to pick plants that were unique but also native to the area,” said Hutchinson-Gross. “Something will be in bloom every season — black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, sedges, and more.”

When the garden officially opened in July 2025, the community gathered to celebrate with an elegant garden party. Among the speakers was Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Executive Director Christina Shutt, who connected the new garden to Mary Lincoln’s enduring legacy.

“Mary Lincoln had a deep appreciation for beauty and refinement, but also resilience,” said Shutt. “These native prairie plants echo both.”

As Illinois faces hotter summers and unpredictable weather, this garden stands as more than just a landscaping project — it’s a symbol of endurance.

“These plants are survivors, weathering storms and enduring hardship — just like Mary herself,” Shutt said. “This garden is a living tribute.”