Mammals have been in the news lately. A wandering coyote appeared in a park on the northwest side, and a colony of beavers has built a dam that’s flooding a heron rookery on Baker’s Lake in Barrington.
Their increase is especially remarkable because it came in the face of almost maniacal persecution by humans. There is still a bounty on coyotes in some states, and huge eradication programs involving guns, traps, poisons, and aerial bombardment have been mounted against them.
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Their ability to withstand this onslaught, to thrive in spite of it, really should be expected. Take an adaptable animal with a high reproductive potential, put it in an environment with ample food and shelter, and it will stand up to the most fearful persecution. We are no more likely to be able to kill off coyotes than we are to rid our cities of rats and mice.
“In the mid-1970’s, about 3,000 coyotes were taken annually for their pelts, by the early 1980’s, more than 10,000 were reported taken annually and the resident population was supposed to be between 20,000 and 30,000.”
Illinois’ location enriches our mammalian fauna. We have cottontails living throughout the state and we also have swamp rabbits, a southern species, living in the bottomlands of far southern Illinois. And in northwestern Illinois we have the white-tailed jackrabbit, an animal of the shortgrass prairie that has colonized the relatively sparse vegetation of our sand prairies.
Mammals of Illinois looks at each of our extant species one by one reporting range, diagnostic characteristics, color, chromosomes, and dental formula along with habitat, habits, food, reproduction, and other life-history details. Color and black-and-white photos show each of the animals discussed, and there are numerous drawings showing such things as typical burrows of the fossorial species.
