Restoration of Custer Park preserve wins award

Extensive, multiyear restoration efforts at the Forest Preserve District of Will County’s Sand Ridge Savanna Nature Preserve in Custer Township have been acknowledged with an “Excellence in Ecological Restoration” award from Chicago Wilderness Alliance.
The District received the award on Jan. 17 at a “Celebration of Conservation” banquet at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle. The award provides recognition for excellence in management of natural communities and sites and demonstrates on-the-ground commitment to the Biodiversity Recovery Plan established by Chicago Wilderness, a regional collaborative of hundreds of partner organizations and individuals working to implement landscape-scale approaches to conservation.
Sand Ridge Savanna, located south of Route 113 and east of Essex Road, is a 941-acre preserve that contains a 625-acre state-designated nature preserve. Almost all the former agricultural acreage at Sand Ridge Savanna has been restored to prairie through work by the Forest Preserve’s conservation department.
Seeding of the site is performed annually and some areas are overseeded. A prescribed fire program burns the site every two to three years. The hydrology of the preserve has been restored by closing ditches and removing drain tiles. Also, beavers have returned to some areas of the prairie and their activity is improving land adjacent to streams and creeks.
Sand Ridge Savanna is monitored yearly for plants of concern, upland birds, state-threatened rattlesnake master (eryngium - a plant), stem borer moth and ornate box turtles.
The Forest Preserve has received Excellence in Ecological Restoration awards in the past for restoration work at Braidwood Dunes and Savanna Nature Preserve. The 2023 award for Sand Ridge Savanna is gold.
For more information on the Forest Preserve District of Will County, visit ReconnectWithNature.org.