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| 1 | SENATE RESOLUTION
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| 2 | WHEREAS, A prairie is a type of grassland and is the | ||||||
| 3 | largest type of habitat in North America; and
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| 4 | WHEREAS, Prairies usually form on level or smoothly | ||||||
| 5 | rolling landscapes; and
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| 6 | WHEREAS, Weather conditions in Illinois over thousands of | ||||||
| 7 | years helped determine that prairies would exist in the State; | ||||||
| 8 | climate in prairies is characterized by hot, dry summers and | ||||||
| 9 | cold winters; when these conditions developed approximately | ||||||
| 10 | 8,300 years ago, the tallgrass prairie became a major part of | ||||||
| 11 | the Illinois landscape; and
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| 12 | WHEREAS, In 1820, Illinois had 22 million acres of prairie | ||||||
| 13 | land and 14 million acres of forests; prairies were mainly in | ||||||
| 14 | the northern two-thirds of the State with forests in the | ||||||
| 15 | southern one-third; all but nine counties had large areas of | ||||||
| 16 | prairies; in central Illinois, trees could only be found in | ||||||
| 17 | scattered sites called "prairie groves" or along waterways; | ||||||
| 18 | and | ||||||
| 19 | WHEREAS, By 1900, most of Illinois' prairies were gone; | ||||||
| 20 | the majority of these lands were converted to agricultural | ||||||
| 21 | practices; by 1978, less than 2,300 acres of high quality | ||||||
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| 1 | prairie remained in the entire State; most of the undisturbed | ||||||
| 2 | prairie sites today are found along railroad rights-of-way, in | ||||||
| 3 | pioneer cemeteries, and in places that are not suitable for | ||||||
| 4 | farming; and | ||||||
| 5 | WHEREAS, Because much of the prairie has been destroyed, | ||||||
| 6 | many of the organisms that depend upon it for their habitat | ||||||
| 7 | needs have been forced to move to new habitats or have become | ||||||
| 8 | very scarce in the State; and
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| 9 | WHEREAS, It is not possible to return to the days of vast | ||||||
| 10 | expanses of prairie in Illinois, as they are gone forever; | ||||||
| 11 | today, we need to protect, manage, and learn from the prairie | ||||||
| 12 | remnants that remain and restore prairie where we can; | ||||||
| 13 | therefore, be it
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| 14 | RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL | ||||||
| 15 | ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we declare the third | ||||||
| 16 | week of September 2023 as "Prairie Week" in the State of | ||||||
| 17 | Illinois in order to promote the awareness of and appreciation | ||||||
| 18 | for prairies; and be it further
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| 19 | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | ||||||
| 20 | presented to the Department of Natural Resources.
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