History
Since its establishment in 1894, the Forbes Biological Station has been the site for many landmark studies.
Aerial Surveys
One noteworthy example is the Waterfowl Aerial Inventory program. In the fall of 1938 and in subsequent years, Frank C. Bellrose, D.Sc., traveled by car and boat with binoculars and a spotting scope to record waterfowl abundance from various vantage points in the Illinois River valley. When Bellrose initiated experimental aerial inventories in the fall of 1946, he noted that the time required to inventory the Illinois Valley was reduced from a week to a single day and that a large part of the Mississippi Valley could be included in that one-day flight.
INHS, with support from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and the Federal Aid to Wildlife Restoration Fund through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), has conducted these aerial inventories annually since 1948 (with the exception of 2001), making it the longest known continuous inventory of waterfowl. Initially flown weekly from October to mid-December, with a January winter inventory added in 1955, the surveys now run from early September through early January to include early teal migration and to overlap with the USFWS Midwinter Waterfowl Survey in early January. This collaborative undertaking, which began before the USFWS breeding waterfowl counts and mid-winter inventories established in 1955, has produced over 65 years of data on fall-migrating waterfowl in Illinois, vastly improving our understanding of the chronology of migration, the effects of refuges, and the distribution of waterfowl in these critical regions.
Data from this project was published in 1999:
Havera SP. 1999. Waterfowl of Illinois: Status and management (and abbreviated field guide): INHS Special Publication 21 and INHS Manual 7. Illinois Natural History Survey Report Number 358:5, 7.
INHS Aerial Inventory Observers, 1948 – Present
Forbes Biological Station Special Publication
INHS Special Publication 32, Forbes Biological Station: the Past and the Promise, documents the 130-year history of Forbes and the dedication of the investigators who continue to give us a better understanding of our wetland habitats and the many projects — such as the aerial inventories — that have shaped wetland and waterfowl research in Illinois.