Dixon Waterfowl Refuge declared a Wetland of International Importance
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated the Wetlands Initiative’s Sue and Wes Dixon Waterfowl Refuge at Hennepin & Hopper Lakes in north-central Illinois a Wetland of International Importance, in accordance with the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
USFWS has requested the convention officially add the Dixon Waterfowl Refuge to its list of international “Ramsar Sites” at the convention’s annual meeting this summer in Switzerland.
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty of 160 member countries adopted in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 to “develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservation of global biodiversity and for sustaining human life through the maintenance of their ecosystem components, processes and benefits/services.”
Only 30 sites in the United States have previously received the designation, including two in Illinois — the Cache River-Cypress Creek Wetlands and the Upper Mississippi River Floodplain Wetlands. In addition to the Dixon Waterfowl Refuge, three other sites in the United States will be added to the list in 2012, including the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge-Emiquon Nature Preserve (also in Illinois), according to USFWS staff.
The Dixon Waterfowl Refuge is located on 2,750 acres of former corn and soybean fields along the Illinois River in Putnam County, 40 miles north of Peoria. In 2001, the Wetlands Initiative turned off the drainage pumps to begin restoring the site to native habitats. Today it has been transformed into a rich mosaic of prairie, wetlands and historic backwater lakes. The refuge now supports outstanding biodiversity with more than 670 native plants and 260 bird species.
The refuge meets six of the nine criteria required to be recognized as a Wetland of International Importance, in that it contains rare wetlands, supports endangered species and threatened ecological communities, regularly supports more than 20,000 waterbirds, and supports significant numbers of both common and extremely rare native fish species.
“Certainly, given its strategic location in the Illinois River Valley and in concert with providing restored wetland habitat that otherwise is absent or severely lacking in the Peoria Pool …, the international avian response to the wetlands of Hennepin & Hopper has documented its significance and its qualifications for a Wetland of International Importance,” wrote Dr. Stephen P. Havera, director emeritus of the Forbes Biological Station in his letter to USFWS supporting the designation.
In 2001, as president of the Wetlands Initiative, Pyott and co-founder Donald Hey led the Wetlands Initiative to create the Hennepin & Hopper Lakes Restoration Project. Within only a few years, the site had become a major resting, feeding and breeding ground for migratory waterfowl, prompting the initiative to dedicate the site as the Sue and Wes Dixon Waterfowl Refuge in 2005.
The refuge is open to the public daily for hiking, bird-watching and paddling. A 30-foot-tall observation tower provides an expansive vista of the restored lakes and marsh, while a half-mile boardwalk trail from the boat launch parking lot allows up-close views of unique wetland plants and wildlife.
