Refuge staff work to restore, enhance, and preserve the oak savanna upland and sedge meadow wetland habitats historically found in extensive areas along the Fox River. Staff also manage the wildlife populations that use these habitats such as the greater sandhill crane and the state threatened Blanding’s turtle.
Wildlife and habitat management techniques include prescribed fire; selective timber and woody shrub harvest; seeding of native prairie forbs (flowering plants), grass and tree species; and non-native invasive species control. Wetlands are restored on the refuge by using ditch filling and stream course re-establishment. These restoration and management activities create biologically diverse and productive wildlife habitats for cranes, ducks, herons, rails, songbirds, deer, turkeys, and bobwhite quail.
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Well-known for their elaborate courtship dances, graceful flight and prehistoric calls, sandhill cranes are the most common cranes in North America.