Kankakee Sands Project Office

As part of an Ecoregion-wide attempt to save a battered and diminishing prairie, The Nature Conservancy’s Kankakee Sands project is rejuvenating a disappearing landscape and providing vital habitat for butterflies, amphibians and grassland birds.

Preserving Nature While Protecting Life

At Kankakee Sands, we are working hard to restore the lands back to their native ecosystems. In doing so, we are providing numerous species the habitat they need in order to thrive. 

  
Insects                  Amphibians         Birds

History of the Project

Located along the eastern extent of the Central Tallgrass Prairie, the Kankakee Sands Macrosite currently encompasses about 22,000 acres on either side of the Indiana/Illinois state line. The Macrosite has one of the richest collections of terrestrial species in the Ecoregion. It boasts the largest and finest clustering of remnant black oak barrens in the Midwestern United States (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services, 1999).  

It also contains the largest prairie remnant in Indiana. Originally surrounded by miles of prairie and wetlands, the remaining black oak barrens now sit isolated from one another, and the prairie has  almost been completely converted to agriculture. Species that require wetlands for part of their life cycle, such as frogs and salamanders, are trapped on  these barrens “islands”, using small ephemeral pockets to reproduce.

In 1996, three key natural areas in northern Newton County—Conrad Savanna, Beaver Lake Prairie and Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area—were imbedded within a matrix of corn and bean fields. To improve the long term survival of the plants and animals on those natural areas, The Nature Conservancy purchased 7,200 intervening acres from Prudential Insurance. This single purchase connected the three properties—a crucial step to ensure that plants and  animals isolated on a single site would have a more natural bridge to interact, share genetic material and increase the vigor of the populations.

Four hundred additional acres were purchased to fill a gap between Kankakee Sands and Willow Slough in October 2008. This acquisition, and those in the future, helps unify the land and makes restoring the prairie across Kankakee Sands many acres easier then when fragmented.

Kankakee Sands Prairie Restoration:
Nursery  /  Seed Collection  /  Stewardship

The Kankakee Sands team is at the forefront of using native plants to recreate prairie plant communities across many acres. We are establishing examples of dry, mesic and wet prairie, as well as sedge meadows, pin oak flatwoods, and black oak barrens. We search the surrounding countryside for small pockets of native plants and collect seed to ensure we are using species native to the Macrosite. We have identified over 500 plant species for use in our planting mixes. Many of those species are now grown in our native seed nursery. The seeds of dry growing species are mixed together, as are mesic and wet prairie in our seed barn. Each mix gets spread on appropriate ground being transformed from farmland to prairie. Land stewards then tend to the prairie by fighting invasive and non-native plants, removing brush, and using prescribed burns.

Visit our Wildflower Nursery, Seed Collection and Stewardship pages for more information!

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Map © TNC; Photo © Bill Herbert (Regal Fritillary); Photo © Jim Harding (Leopard frog); Photo © Bill Atwood (Henslow sparrow);  Photo © TNC (flowers).