Photo Gallery

August 31, 2008

Prairie in Peoria County

Possible Donation to Peoria Audubon

Butterfly on Prairie Thistle

Photo Gallery

August 23, 2008

2008 Peoria Hummingbird Festival

Feeling the heartbeat @ 1200 beats/minute

New Season of Peoria Audubon Membership Meetings:

"Update on the Mississippi River Restoration"

Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008 @ 7:00 pm at Forest Park Nature Center

Brad Walker, River Restoration Coordinator, for the Prairie Rivers Network, will provide an update on Mississippi River restoration.  Their mission is to protect the rivers and streams of Illinois and to promote the lasting health and beauty of watershed communities.

The Prairie Rivers Network engages citizens and organizations in this effort, providing them the information, sound science, and technical assistance they need to get involved, press for better enforcement of the Clean Water Act, and educate their local policy makers about the importance of clean water in their communities.

"The Mississippi River continues to flow to the Gulf of Mexico despite the many dams we have placed in its path. Occasionally it reminds us, regardless of the hundreds of miles of levees protecting our developments built in floodplain areas, that it is simply tolerating us.

However, our obsession with river management has taken a toll on the river ecosystems. These systems have been in decline since the completion of the major dams and levees and are generally continuing to decline even though we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on restoration efforts over two decades.

The primary reason for the construction of the dams, southward barge shipment of grains, has generally been flat or declining over the last couple of decades. Despite this trend, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ continuously projects significant future increases in barge traffic and is pushing a major, expensive expansion of the lock system."

According to Brad, "I will be discussing the general condition of the river environment, with a bit of a history and background refresher, as well as the benefits of a large-scale restoration effort. Also included will be an update of the Corps’ lock expansion and ecosystem restoration project, known as the Navigation and Ecological Sustainability Program or NESP, which was included in the 2007 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA)."

Come 10 minutes early (6:50 PM) for Special Book Sale Event at Forest Park Nature Center.  Maury Brucker will be bringing four select boxes of books and references for sale.   Maury will bring books that relate to:

• General Birding

• Birding in all of the Americas (North, Central & South) including Hawaii

• Birding in Australia with New Zealand and New Guinea. 

Note that these represent four of the seven boxes of books that the family of the late Louise Augustine donated.  100% of the proceeds will go to the Peoria Audubon Bird Sanctuary Fund to establish a local birding habitat. 

Click Here for list (pdf) of all remaining unsold books  (Updated Sept. 4, 2008)

Be sure to come early

Please join us Wed. Sept. 10 at 7:00 PM for this very special event; held at FPNC.

Public is Always Welcome

Meetings are free and open to the public

Monthly meetings of Peoria Audubon Society are held at 

Forest Park Nature Center in Peoria Heights.