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The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Grasslands Preserve Expands to 2,500 Acres

Critical Open Space, Supporting Rare Plants and Animals, Protected

Chicago—15 June 2005—One of Illinois’ most significant and dynamic prairies—The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Grasslands Preserve—is growing from 1,500 acres to more than 2,500 acres. The expansion secures vital habitat for rare and declining plants and animals, including Blanding’s turtle, Henslow sparrow, bobolink, Franklin ground squirrel, fame flower and kittentail flowers, while protecting critical open space in the quickly-expanding northeastern Illinois growth corridor.

The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation made this expansion possible through a generous $2.5 million grant to the Conservancy. The Foundation will be honored June 15 at 10 a.m. with a dedication ceremony that celebrates Nachusa Grasslands, located about 100 miles west of Chicago near Dixon, Illinois.

“More than 6,500 acres of forests, waterways, blufflands and grasslands are protected in communities across Illinois because of grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation,” said James Mann, the Foundation’s executive director.

The Foundation has supported the Conservancy’s work in key areas in the state, including Kankakee Sands, just south of Chicago; the southern Illinois Ozarks; and at Nachusa, which received one of the Foundation’s largest-ever grants. The Nachusa grant also helped the Conservancy secure a $2.3 million anonymous gift, given in the memory of Dewitt Holland, which was critical to this expansion.

Prairies once covered great swaths of Illinois. Over the years, agriculture and industry transformed this rich natural landscape. The fertile soils were plowed for farmland, as the Midwest became the heart of this country’s agricultural might. Because of these changes, a mere one-tenth of 1 percent of Illinois’ prairies remains.

“Nachusa Grasslands is one of those rare places where we can glimpse how this land appeared to those who first saw it, Native Americans and early settlers,” Mann said.

Nachusa is a bold attempt to create a landscape-scale preserve, which research tells us is needed for the long-term health of these species. The addition of 1,000 acres adjacent to Nachusa helps realize this goal by increasing the preserve’s size and connecting existing protected areas.

“Nachusa is an example of how private sector action can advance conservation of critical landscapes for us and for future generations,” said Bruce Boyd, executive director of the Conservancy in Illinois. “It also touches the future of conservation across the plains and serves as a living model for a variety of land management techniques, including controlled burns and natural areas restoration. As the Conservancy expands its efforts to preserve and restore imperiled grasslands around the world, lessons learned here will guide future conservation.”

The Conservancy continues to restore and preserve Nachusa, one of the largest and most biologically rich prairie sites in the Midwest. It provides safe haven for 11 different natural communities, and numerous plants and animals that are rare in Illinois and the United States.

“The Conservancy is breaking new ground with many of the methods used to restore Nachusa Grasslands,” said Bill Kleiman, who manages the project. “For example, we are creating large prairies with a high number of plant species. This diversity will support many rare species, such as the regal fritillary butterfly that depends on violets to thrive, or the gorgone checkerspot butterfly that feeds on prairie coreopsis flowers. We are trying to demonstrate that habitat can be restored at a large scale.”

Nachusa also is a testament to the difference volunteers can make. Volunteers annually donate about 8,000 hours of labor to the restoration and management of this marvelous example of prairie grassland. Specially-trained volunteers help the Conservancy conduct controlled burns, monitor wildlife; stop the spread of harmful, non-native species; and harvest thousands of pounds of seed every year.

More than 600 species of flowering plants and 180 species of birds may be seen at the preserve, including grassland birds, which are experiencing steeper, more consistent and more geographically widespread declines than any other group of North American species.  The prairies, woodlands and wetlands at Nachusa support oak and hickory savanna, and springs and seeps that are home to water-loving plants such as the tussoc sedge, marsh marigold and the rare yellow monkey flower. One of Illinois’ largest populations of the federally-threatened prairie bush clover grows at Nachusa. 

Nachusa Grasslands is open to the public for hiking, bird watching and other activities. The grasslands are in bloom from April through October, but the ruddy color of little bluestem grass in winter makes Nachusa’s rolling landscape beautiful year round.

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The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. 

The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation works with communities across Illinois to improve energy efficiency, develop renewable energy resources, and to preserve and enhance natural areas and wildlife habitat.  In the last five years, it has awarded 1600 grants totaling more than $86 million to support projects in 94 of Illinois 102 counties.  For more information about the Foundation, visit www.IllinoisCleanEnergy.org