Preserve Description
This heavily glaciated 840 acre preserve hosts a 15-acre soft water lake, virtually undisturbed bogs, and the most extensive swamps and marshes in the state.

Location
Northern Wisconsin: In Iron County, approximately 25 miles from Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation.

Conditions
No trails; uplands are accessible by foot but separated by large wetland areas.  Site is open year round, dusk to dawn, for low-impact recreation (hiking, bird-watching, etc.), and for deer hunting during the DNR posted seasons.

What’s Special about the Preserve
Part of the Northern Highlands natural region, the preserve contains a diversity of trees, including aspen, sugar and red maple, yellow and white birch.  In the swamp conifer forest rimming the lake and other water bodies, mature tamarack and black spruce trees grow along with large white pines.

Wildlife such as the great blue herons, osprey and common loons is found in abundance near these wetlands.  Bald eagles and black bears have also been spotted in the area.

Preserve Description
This 315 acre preserve contains high-quality acid bedrock glades within a matrix of southern dry forest, southern dry-mesic forest, and northern hardwoods.

Location
Southern Wisconsin:  Located in the Baraboo Hills in Sauk County, Baraboo Township, southwest of the City of Baraboo.

Conditions
Moderate, hilly, and rocky terrain, with a moderately steep climb to the glades.  Several old logging roads serve as trails.  Nature Conservancy permit required for deer hunting.

What's Special about the Preserve
The preserve features a set of high-quality bedrock glades perched on a plateau ringed by quartzite cliffs.  On the glades, stunted shagbark hickories reach only eight-to-nine inches in diameter, despite being at least 80 years old.  Happy Hill Glades is also notable as an historic turkey vulture nesting site and for its impressive flowering display of shooting stars in early summer.

Description
This 120 acre property contains a mosaic of forest and former agricultural fields recently planted to hardwoods and conifers.

Location
Southern Wisconsin: Located in the Baraboo Hills in Sauk County, Greenfield Township, just east of Devil’s Lake State Park.

Preserve Description
Part of the extensive Baraboo Hills region of Wisconsin, at Leopold Woods you’ll see dramatic rocky outcroppings and sheer sandstone ridges from 40 to 50 feet high, which incorporate a small cave and escarpment.

Location
South-central Wisconsin: In Sauk County, northeast of Sauk City

Conditions
Nature Conservancy permit required for deer hunting.

What’s Special about the Preserve
Tree species include red and white oak, red and sugar maple, yellow birch, white pine, basswood, and large hemlock relic.

Birdlife attracted to the densely forested hemlock-maple area include the Acadian flycatcher and Louisiana waterthrush.

Directions
Off U.S. Hwy 12 between Baraboo and Sauk city, travel west on County Hwy C four miles to Freedom Rd.  Take Freedom Rd. two miles to an old log house on right near the intersection of Hilltop Rd. Park near the Y-intersection and take an old roadbed approximately 50-100 yards past abandoned shacks to the southwest corner of the preserve.  A compass is advisable since there are no cleared paths.

Preserve Description
This 75 acre property is located at the base of a glacial moraine and contains primarily marsh and sedge meadow.  There are numerous springs at the headwaters of a small creek.  Very little of the preserve is uplands.

Location
Southeastern Wisconsin: Located in Sheboygan County, Rhine Township, just north of the city of Elkhart Lake.

Conditions
No trails and very wet.  Once off the road, scrub creates a formidable barrier to ground travel.  The Nature Conservancy allows open hunting for white-tailed deer.

What’s Special about the Preserve
Muehl Springs contributes numerous soft water springs to a larger, unique wetland ecosystem, which ultimately flows into the Sheboygan River.

Preserve Description
Shielded on two sides by dolomitic headlands, this 890 acre preserve boasts at least 8,500 feet of Lake Michigan shoreline.

Boreal forests of spruce, fir, cedar and white birch share the landscape with white cedar swamps; calcareous fens; open spring ponds; and coastal marshes of sedge, bulrush and bluejoint grass.  Three Springs Creek (or Nick’s Crick), the major feeder stream of the preserve, drains the large cedar swamps north of the open bay.

Location
Northern Wisconsin: In Door County on Lake Michigan, northeast of Bailey’s Harbor.

Conditions
Hunters must call The Nature Conservancy’s Door Peninsula office at (920) 743-8695 for permission to hunt on this preserve.

What’s Special about the Preserve
This large coastal wetland serves as a nesting site for numerous bird species, provides habitat for several kinds of game fish, and helps protect the water quality needed for the whitefish that spawn each fall in the shallow coastal waters of the bay.

The forests of North Bay are home to dwarf lake iris and several species of rare butterflies and dragonflies, including the Hine’s emerald dragonfly, a federally endangered species.

Preserve Description
Oaks and maples extending to great heights compose a thick forest at this picturesque preserve.  On Pan Hollow’s steep, shaded cliffs, you will find a variety of woodland plants flowering among the rocks.

Location
Southwestern Wisconsin:  Sauk County in the Baraboo Hills region, just north of the town of Denzer.

Conditions
Nature Conservancy permit required for deer hunting.

What’s Special about the Preserve
Pan Hollow contains a remarkable variety of geological formations in a compact area.  The northwest section features Baraboo quartzite and relatively flat uplands.  At the eastern and southeastern portions of the preserve, the terrain slopes dramatically, dropping 120 feet in a space of 400 feet.  East of the cliff area the land forms an intermittent stream bottom containing hornbeam and Turk’s cap lily.

Preserve Description
This 400 acre preserve’s diverse topography provides the conditions for plant and animal species of both northern and southern origin.

Along the steep ravine formed by the flow of an intermittent stream grow many sizes of hemlock trees, and on the upper edges of sandstone cliffs, large white pines.  Oak stands can be seen in the uplands on the eastern edge of the preserve, and both maple and birch communities are found in the lower valley near the stream.

Location
Southwestern Wisconsin:  Located in the Baraboo Hills region of Sauk County, just northwest of the town of Denzer.

Conditions
Nature Conservancy permit required for deer hunting.

What’s Special about the Preserve
The mature northern hardwood forest at Pine Hollow supports a strong breeding bird community, comprised of both northern birds like the Canada warbler and southern birds like the Louisiana waterthrush.  At least three rare plant species are protected here—ginseng, sword moss, and saxifrage.

Preserve Description
This 556 acre preserve is part of a 3,400 acre wetland complex, perhaps one of the largest contiguous cedar swamps in Wisconsin.  The larger complex encompasses the 81 acre Dunes Lake, two smaller lakes, several streams and springs, forested sand dunes, lowland conifer forest, sedge meadows and fens.

Location
Northern Wisconsin: In Door County on Lake Michigan, northeast of Sturgeon Bay.

Conditions
Hunters must call The Nature Conservancy’s Door Peninsula office at (920) 743-8695 for permission to hunt on this preserve.

What’s Special about the Preserve
The large central white cedar swamp surrounding the three undeveloped lakes is rich in rare plants.  Orchids flower amidst the mosses and downed trees.  The fen-like communities found on the lake edges harbor tussock bulrush and coast sedge.  Dwarf lake iris, a state- and federally-threatened species, blooms in the upland conifer forest adjacent to the cedar swamp.

Here you can see a wide variety of mammals, such as short-tailed and masked shrews, fisher, otter, red fox, black bear, snowshoe hare, mink, and possibly bobcat.  More than 110 different bird species also use the site, with black terns and sandhill cranes common to Dunes Lake.

Preserve Description
Just 35 miles from downtown Milwaukee, this 227 acre preserve thrives undisturbed.  Here you’ll see a rare combination of two community types—pristine lakes and tamarack swamp.  The lakes on the preserve are encircled by some 70 acres of swamp and wet mesic forest species like white cedar, black spruce, balsam fir and jack pine.

Location
Southeastern Wisconsin: in Washington County near Hartford in the town of Erin.

Conditions
Nature Conservancy permit required for deer hunting.

What’s Special about the Preserve
The preserve harbors a fine mix of prairie grasses, dogwoods and willows, goldenrod, milkweed, sweet cicely and wild leek. Mosses and other swamp groundcover, such as creeping snowberry and Solomon’s seal, are also found along the shoreline.

A canopy of sugar maple draws a sizable population of forest breeding birds to the Zinn preserve, such as the cedar waxwing, wood thrush, and black-capped chickadee.  Beck Lake provides safe harbor for nesting and migratory waterfowl, including wood ducks, blue-wing teal, and mallards.