1. How did you find your current job?
2. When you chose your major as ESE, have you thought about your future career? Was it anything like what you are doing now?
3. Tell me one thing you love the most and one thing you dislike the most about your job.
4. As an ESE major, it’s always hard for me to explain to people outside the college (such as my parents and high school friends…) about what I’m doing, because they either don’t know any scientific fact about the environment, or they just don’t care. Do you have the same experience? How do you feel about it?
5. What’s the most valuable skill/knowledge you’ve learnt in college that helped you find the job?

Franklin’s ground squirrel (Poliocitellus franklinii) is a species of ground rodent native to North America. Like other terrestrial rodents we are familiar with, Franklin’s ground squirrel has short legs, a relatively short and furry tail, brown fur with dark flecks, and large cheek pouches to carry food with. Male Franklin’s ground squirrels are larger than females, they can grow up to 37cm-41cm including their tails, while adult females are about 36cm-40cm long. And they generally weigh no more than two pounds. These squirrels love tall- and mid- grass prairies for the dense vegetation cover and the soil that is suitable for burrowing. They sleep in burrows during the night and come out to seek for food during the day. Their diet ranges from dandelion and clover to insect eggs and small fish.

Franklin’s ground squirrels used to be abundant in Illinois, but they are rarely seen nowadays. In fact, Franklin’s ground squirrel is listed as a threatened species by IDRN (Illinois Department of Natural Resources). The major threat this species is facing is habitat loss and fragmentation. The loss of tall grass prairie and the transition to agricultural/urban land have forced Franklin’s ground squirrels either to migrate out of Illinois or to adapt corn-field/urban environment. But sadly, this furry species cannot adapt to the significant change of habitat fast enough, and its population in Illinois has decreased largely.

I had never considered issues with meat before majoring in ESE. This is probably the result of my family’s diet-my mother, as a Buddhist, has a strict vegetarian diet; my father, on the other hand, is not as religious, and thus he goes to restaurants whenever he is craving for meat. So my diet has become a mixture of my parents’: I can live with absolutely no meat, and I can become a meat-lover when I can only afford a cheap hamburger. Freshman year, when I first realized how evil the meat industry is, I simply switch to my vegetarian model for the sake of animals.

I understand that my case is not very common. And to solve the problems caused by meat industry-either for animal well-beings or for human health-becoming a vegetarian is nothing but evading the issues. I could feel the deepest horror when I was reading about feeding dead cattle back to cattle in Power Steer. This is just wrong. But as long as it brings profit, companies will keep making their cattle cannibal. I have no idea how anybody could change this situation besides telling myself “I will never eat beef again”.

I have to admit, whenever I talk about animal product, I become very sad and pessimistic. But humans have to consume animal products one or another. Maybe as Michael Pollan suggested, feeding grass to cattle is a good solution.

There’s More We Can Do

The day we visited the Florida Avenue prairie planting was a dark, cold and humid day. It was so cloudy that it almost made me miserable to get off the bed and go on the field trip. But at a first glance of the prairie zone, I knew I wouldn’t regret coming. It was beautiful. Although it was such a small area on the side of road that couldn’t be considered as a real prairie, it looked like a whole different world when we were standing by it.

As we walked into the prairie, I could feel the richness of biodiversity just by seeing, hearing and smelling it. Wild flowers in yellow, pink, purple, white and red are all over the place. Leaves of different shapes all cluster together so tightly that you can’t tell which leaf is from which plant. Even though the prairie zone is right next to the road and you can hear traffic passing by, you can still hear the sound of nature when you are in there: birds’ and insects’ singing, small animals’ burrowing and plants swinging. Dr. Ken Robertson has introduced us the smell of gray headed cone flower and two other plants. They all smell very refreshing, and I believe some perfume named “Rain” or “Grass” are definitely inspired by the smell of those plants. I would almost call the prairie planting a mini-paradise of prairie life. However, it is far from being a real ecosystem.

Dr. Robertson has pointed out that “it takes 30 years to plant a real prairie, but this one is only planted in 2010”. Though the place seems full of life, not all the plants are what we want to preserve as prairie species. Weed is taking up a large portion of the ground surface. It is hard to remove the weed completely with only manual picking. In the wild, fire is a vital element for tall grass prairie. Fire kills all the woody species and weed which have growing point above the ground, while prairie species survive the fire with their growing point under the surface. Without fire, prairie has become lack of competiveness. It is somehow unnatural that most forbs are taller than people. Dr. Robertson explained that these plants are taller than their natural counterparts because they live in a garden environment with human care. In nature, prairie plants are not as tall because they need to compete with woody plants for nutrient. Dr. Robertson also noticed that most birds come to this area because they are attracted by seed of the plants; they come merely to seek food but do not use this area as a habitat. Sadly, he has never found a prairie bird which nests on the ground here. Florida Avenue prairie planting could be just too young to maintain a real ecosystem. But what will happen if we preserve it for another 26 years? Will bison and deer come back to live in the small prairie on Florida Avenue?

I have been to a few grasslands in other parts of the world. The most impressive one among all is the Inner Mongolia Grassland in China. Its vastness makes it seems to extend to the end of the horizon. I still remember riding a horse for over an hour and seeing nothing but grass with wild flowers, cattle and sheep and a few Mongolian yurts here and there. No freeways, no wind farms, nothing but nature. It was such a magnificent view that I will never forget in my whole life, and it made me wonder, what if we still had vast prairie in Illinois?

Prairie used to cover about 60% of the land in Illinois, and about 95% in Champaign. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Robertson, there is only 1 acre prairie left in Champaign County, due to agriculture and urbanization land use. Illinois is known by its rich soil, and because of that, it has become one of the largest agriculture state and has lost over 99% of the original prairie (Understanding Prairie in the Prairie State 16). Biodiversity, of course, has gone with the prairie.

Wandering around campus, I have seen people’s effort on preserving local prairie species by planting a little prairie grass here and there. But five plants by the curb and five plants across the street can never make an ecosystem. To preserve a prairie ecosystem, we need to do a lot more. Where to start? What about stop buying expensive exotic vegetation every spring and planting a prairie garden behind our houses? Prairie is beautiful, and it doesn’t need too much care. If everybody starts to do it, we are building a prairie ecosystem together. Although it will be patched by roads and buildings, it will be large as a whole.

Works Cited

Ellis, James. Understanding Prairie in the Prairie State. Illinois Natural History Survey, Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign.

Robertson, Ken. Introduction before field trip. 11 Sept. 2014.