Audubon Council of Illinois Launches Bird City Illinois Program
ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS – Modeled after the highly successful Bird City Wisconsin, the Audubon Council of Illinois is pleased to announce Bird City Illinois beginning in 2022. If a community meets at least nine criteria of the program, it becomes an official Bird City. To become a Bird City, both the public officials and citizens demonstrate an active and ongoing commitment to the protection and conservation of bird populations and their habitats.
These members belong to Audubon groups, nature preserves, land trusts, bird clubs, museums, garden clubs, school groups, chambers of commerce, and other eco-minded businesses that can come together for effective planning, development, and implementation of bird conservation issues locally and statewide.
The Audubon Council of Illinois has been working to develop this program for the past two years. Three National Audubon Chapters, Lake County Audubon, Northwest Illinois Audubon, and Sinnissippi Audubon, have piloted the model during that time. As a result, on Monday December 20, 2021, three cities received the designation of Bird City Illinois. Those cities include Freeport, Rockford, and Waukegan. All three demonstrated that they met the necessary criteria within six key categories, such as Habitat Creation, Protection, and Monitoring of Natural Communities, and Public Education, and Inclusion in order to receive the designation.
The mission of Bird City Illinois is to encourage all communities in Illinois to implement sound bird-conservation practices by offering public recognition to those that succeed in enhancing the environment for birds and educating the public about the relationship between birds and people and how that contributes to a healthy community. Board President, Jennifer Kuroda, stated, “Birds are so important to Illinois: economically, aesthetically, ecologically, and scientifically. Illinois has a huge responsibility in keeping bird populations robust and thriving.” The grassland birds that call Illinois prairies home are amongst the fastest-declining species of birds in North America. Grassland dependent bird species have lost 53% of their population over the past 50 years. (Rosenberg et al. 2019). These species have suffered due to conversion to agriculture, urban development, and habitat fragmentation.
In addition to completing an application for Bird City Illinois, the designation also requires filing annual reports and reapplying after three years.
About Audubon Council of Illinois
The Audubon Council of Illinois is a coalition of Illinois chapters of the National Audubon Society. Our mission is to cooperate with Chapters of the National Audubon Society in promoting sound environmental legislation emphasizing conservation of State natural resources, in sponsoring environmental educational initiatives that transcend Chapter boundaries, in enhancing inter-Chapter relationships, and in fostering awareness of Audubon Council’s activities. Learn more at www.auduboncil.org.