The Iroquois County State Wildlife Area is an Illinois state park that occupies in northeastern Iroquois County, near the border with

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. The nearest municipality is

Beaverville, Illinois Beaverville (formerly St. Marie) is a village in Beaverville Township, Iroquois County, Illinois, United States. The population was 362 at the 2010 census. History In 1851, 32 families from the area of Montreal, Canada, mostly newlywed or sing ...

, and the nearest exit on a limited-access highway is Exit 302 on

Interstate 57 Interstate 57 (I-57) is a north–south Interstate Highway in Missouri and Illinois that parallels the old Illinois Central Railroad for much of its route. It runs from Sikeston, Missouri, at I-55 to Chicago, Illinois, at I-94. I-57 essen ...

(

Chebanse, Illinois Chebanse is a village in Iroquois and Kankakee counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 1,044 at the 2020 census. The Kankakee County portion of Chebanse is included in the Kankakee-Bradley, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical ...

Ecology

The Iroquois County State Wildlife Area is a surviving remnant of the Great Kankakee Swamp, a 5,300 sq mi (14,000 km²) expanse of

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

that once drained the slow-flowing Kankakee River valley. The glacial melt episode that marked the conclusion of the

Wisconsonian glaciation The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cor ...

washed a fan of sand, silt, and sediments westward from Northwest Indiana into Northeastern Illinois, and this

outwash plain An outwash plain, also called a sandur (plural: ''sandurs''), sandr or sandar, is a plain formed of glaciofluvial deposits due to meltwater outwash at the terminus of a glacier. As it flows, the glacier grinds the underlying rock surface and ca ...

, which remained damp or wet year-round, became the home of a significant quantity of habitat-specific wetland plants and insects.Joe McFarland, "Sand in the Way of Progress", ''Outdoor Illinois'' XVIII:8 (August 2010), pages 2-5.

History

The Kankakee Swamp wetlands were the home of many

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

and other fur-bearing mammals, which led to the nearby locality being incorporated as the municipality of ''Beaverville.'' The nearby towns of Chebanse and

St. Anne According to Christianity, Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the Gospel#Canonical gospels, canonical gospels. ...

pay tribute to the area's

French-Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fr ...

fur-trading heritage. During the great drainage of the Kankakee Swamp, starting in the late 19th century, ditches were dug all over eastern Iroquois County to drain the outwash plain. While most of the ditched land became fertile farmland, the sands of far-northeastern Iroquois County resisted profitable farming activity. In 1944 a predecessor agency of the

Illinois Department of Natural Resources The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is the code department of the Illinois state government that operates the state parks and state recreation areas, enforces the fishing and game laws of Illinois, regulates Illinois coal mines, ...

(IDNR) began to acquire the land of the future Iroquois County State Wildlife Area. The population of the

greater prairie chicken The greater prairie chicken or pinnated grouse (''Tympanuchus cupido''), sometimes called a boomer,Friederici, Peter (July 20, 1989)"The Last Prairie Chickens" ''Chicago Reader''. Retrieved August 27, 2014.（Chinese 中文：帕艺明彩大凤� ...

had crashed in Illinois, and the state hoped the

flagship species In conservation biology, a flagship species is a species chosen to raise support for biodiversity conservation in a given place or social context. Definitions have varied, but they have tended to focus on the strategic goals and the socio-economi ...

could be induced to rebuild a breeding population in the new sanctuary.

Today

Attempts in the 20th century to reintroduce the greater prairie chicken to northeastern Iroquois County failed. State naturalists believe the wildlife area is too wet to be a good home for this species. The IDNR adaptively reused the failed prairie-chicken ground as a place to hunt

whitetail deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

dove Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

pheasant Pheasants ( ) are birds of several genera within the family (biology), family Phasianidae in the order (biology), order Galliformes. Although they can be found all over the world in introduced (and captive) populations, the pheasant genera na ...

quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New Wor ...

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

s, and

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...

s. These game activities continue in their respective hunting seasons. The Iroquois County State Wildlife Area is today a mosaic of

sand dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

and

wet prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

habitats. The juxtaposition of the sand and wetland has created a rolling

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

landscape of trees and grass, classified as an oak barren. The dominant oak tree is the

black oak Black Oak may refer to: Places in the United States * Black Oak, Arkansas * Black Oak, Daviess County, Indiana * Black Oak, Lake County, Indiana, a neighborhood of Gary, Indiana * Black Oak, Missouri Other * Black Oak Arkansas, American band ** ...

, often found on relatively infertile, sandy ground. The black-oak savanna is one of the largest native grassland remnants in Illinois. Prairie

forb A forb or phorb is an herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid (grass, sedge, or rush). The term is used in biology and in vegetation ecology, especially in relation to grasslands and understory. Typically these are dicots without woo ...

s include the

blazing star ''Blazing Star'' is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Yumekobo and published by SNK in 1998 for the Neo Geo arcade and home systems. It is a follow-up to '' Pulstar'' (1995) and features side-scrolling action similar to its predecessor an ...

and hairy puccoon.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control State parks of Illinois Protected areas of Iroquois County, Illinois Protected areas established in 1944 1944 establishments in Illinois

Ecology

History

Today

See also

References

External links