A BULLETIN FOR THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
DESIGNED FOR INCLUSION IN THE WEEKLY 
ANNOUNCEMENT SENT OUT FROM THE OFFICE OF SUPT. 
WILLIAM H. JOHNSON
Clayton F. Smith, President
Roberts Mann, Superintendent of Conservation
February 1, 1945
Nature Bulletin No. 1

FOREST PRESERVE NOTES

Grown-ups, who used to kive on a farm or in a small town, are fond of 
talking about the old-fashioned winters "when I was a boy" and the 
winters that grandpa used to tell about.  Well, one would have to go 
back a long, long time to find a winter as severe as this one.

****:FISH SMOTHER UNDER ICE

Lakes and streams breathe the same as living things.  When they are 
covered with ice and snow they cannot get air and they much hold their 
breath until the ice thaws.  While they are holding their breath the 
oxygen in the water is gradually used up by the living things sealed up 
in it -- fish, plants "bugs", snails, and hosts of microscopic life.  If the 
ice lasts long enough, these living things die one after another as each 
kind reaches the point where it cannot stand any further oxygen 
starvation.  Sometimes temporary relief is given by rains and melting 
snow that bring fresh, serated water under the ice, but no method of 
artificial respiration has been found that works.  Sometimes, too, when 
water plants get enough sunlight through clear ice they produce small 
amounts of oxygen and delay the suffocation of the fish, etc.; but when 
snow and cloudy ice cuts off the light this does not happen.

On December 8, all of the sloughs, ponds, streams and small lakes in 
the Cook County forest preserves froze over tight.  Two days later this 
was followed by almost a foot of snow.  Since then the ice has frozen 
thicker and thicker, and several more heavy snows have fallen.  For 
eight weeks there have been no rains or snows to bring in oxygen, and 
the fish in most of these waters are already dead or dying.

During the last half of January, inspections were made through holes 
chopped in the ice and in occasional bits of open water at dams.  We 
found large numbers of dead fish of all common kinds.  At the 
McGinnis Slough Waterfowl Refuge near Orland Park, which has 314 
acres of shallow water, numbers of black bullheads and golden shiners 
were found dead, but no live fish of any kinds.  Since these species will 
live with less oxygen than most fish, it is presumed that the kill is 
practically complete and may reach 100 tons.  As many as 50 tons may 
have died in the 190 acres of water in the Skokie Lagoons in the 
northeastern corner of the county, although a few are still finding 
enough oxygen to stay alive where a little water pours over the low 
dams that separate the lagoons.  Here the main part of the kill was 
good-sized largemouth bass, crappies and bluegills, along with 
moderate numbers of large carp.  The kill in the DesPlaines River also 
seems to be practically complete.  At Dam No. 1, near Wheeling, large 
numbers of medium-sized carp are being hauled away for chicken and 
hog feed, while a flock of herring gulls feed on those that are not frozen 
solid.  No dead fish have been found in 55-acre Maple Lake near 
Willow Springs, probably because it is deeper and its oxygen reserves 
are greater.

BIRD FEEDING

A lot of kind people are afraid the birds will starve this winter and 
should be fed.  There's no harm and you'll get a lot of fun in feeding 
the juncoes, the sparrows, and the few songbirds -- such as the robin 
and the cardinal -- that sometimes stay here all winter:  PROVIDED 
you put hte feeding board or hopper up where the cats can't lie in wait 
to pounce on the birds that come there.

But feeding grain on the ground to pheasants, qualis and other birds out 
in the country or the forest preserves is really unnecessary and can be 
dangerous to the birds if always done in the same place.  Not only cats 
but hawks, owls, weasels and foxes soon learn to hide near such feeding 
stations to catch and devour the birds as they come there.

Besides, such feeding isn't really necessary.  We walked through the 
deep snow over several hundred acres of our forest preserves the other 
day.  We found a network of tracks made by pheasants, quail, rabbits 
and dogs, as well as a few other animals.  Whenever there was a clump 
of burdock (that weed with the big, broad leaves, and the burrs that 
stick to your clothes), the pheasants had reached up and pecked all the 
seeds out of the burrs.  The same thing had happened to the ragweed, 
the giant ragweed (or "horse-weed") and a lot of other weeds that have 
a lot of fat seeds.  And you could see the tracks of the small birds that 
had cleaned up what the pheasants had scattered.  Birds know how to 
take care of themselves in the wild.

Weeds, even if they do not have pretty flowers, have a very real 
purpose and value in nature.  The field mice get most of what the birds 
don't get.