Jacob, same thing is happening to the salamanders with the blue spots where my parents live. After the rain we would find them everywhere- in leaves, under rocks, in our garage, under tires/cars. Now we only see the ones that live in their sprinkler system. Behind our house is a "wetland habitat". It's pretty crappy and surrounded by subdivisions.
Its pretty crappy your township got rid of forrest preserve. Currently, I was thinking about doing a survey in the Orland Park/Palos IL area for newts and salamanders. That area is being built up even faster than where my parents live. Orland has lots of wetland and grass land, but all is turning into subdivions now. They town/parkdistrict has all this stuff set up to protect praries and little birds, but not wetlands and water monsters.
I have not seen a mudpuppy since I was in grade school. We used to smelt fish behind the Shedd Aquarium, and in the nets guys would catch mudpuppies. Smelt fishing is <font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font> now, due to introduced species and onlything people catch is garabage and zebra mussels.
We also have a cottage that is near Culver in Indiana that has been in the family for ages-belonged to my great grandma. Anyways, my dad said when he was young and into the 1980's there would be tiger and spotted salamanders. In my life I have only seen toads there and baby cat fish.
Everything is disapearing, especially things that rock, like mudpuppy and tiger salamanders. Don't get me started about how nasty the reefs are in the Florida Keys these days.
I am trying to look for Illinios/Great Lakes Basin caudate conservation groups. When I go to my interview at the Shedd, I will see if they have information on conservation and data of caudata of Illinios.