News

Lakewood Gets Restoration

First it was Middlefork Savanna. Then Rollins Savanna. Now, comes Lakewood, the third Lake County preserve to be restored and managed as a "macro-site," a suite of habitats that support diverse flora and fauna. The idea of a macro-site is relatively new in the world of ecology, but it's one that has stuck: connecting large habitats and allowing their denizens to interact offers the greatest chance for rare plants and animals to thrive.

Six hundred acres of mostly agricultural land will be restored to natural habitat at Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda. When complete, the 2,000-plus acre site will be a unique collection of habitats on a large scale, says Jim Anderson, natural resources manager for the Lake County Forest Preserves. The landscape will be a mosaic of open water, mudflats, hemi-marshes, wet prairies, and savanna attracting migratory shorebirds, ducks, and shorebirds as well as breeding wetland and grassland birds.

It has always been part of the district's master plan, says Anderson, to create a macro-site by connecting Lakewood to Broberg Marsh to the west and Ray Lake Farm to the east. Now, with a recent donation to underwrite a substantial part of the cost of restoring the 600 acres, the district can start on the project a lot sooner than planned, he says.

Gordon McLean of Lake Zurich has bestowed an undisclosed amount of money to restore Lakewood. McLean's wife loved birds, and the restoration will provide habitat for a greater number of species to forage, nest, and rest.

The McLean donation came on the heels of a controversy over whether Lakewood should be used as an equestrian site for the 2016 Olympics if Chicago were chosen as the host city. Some nearby residents objected to the plan, saying it would disturb wildlife and disrupt the wetland at Broberg Marsh. In the end, the Olympic Committee decided to move the venue to the well-known Tempel Farms in northern Lake County. According to Anderson, the site formerly slated for the equestrian venue does eventually need major restoration work, but it is not included in the current project.

It takes a good five to ten years to restore degraded sites; however, one management technique that seems to work almost overnight, says Anderson, is removing old farm drainage tiles. Once tiles are removed, water settles into the natural depressions, and wetlands are reborn. With seed banks still in place beneath the soil, plants start growing and animals soon follow.

Macro-sites are important because they provide everything an animal needs during its life cycle, says Anderson. Sandhill cranes, for example, require wetlands for nesting and adjacent upland woods and other undisturbed areas to which they bring their young after hatching, says Brad Semel of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Anderson says that rare birds, such as the black terns that nest at Broberg Marsh, may use the restored Lakewood site as an ancillary place for foraging and possibly establishing a new breeding colony. Other species, including bluebirds, flycatchers, and indigo buntings, may breed in the restored woods, while grasshopper sparrows may nest in the grasslands. Some of these birds exist there now, but their numbers should increase.

— Sheryl DeVore