Wetlands
Water is a necessity of life. All plants and animals need water to live. Our local weather delivers about 32 inches of water as rain and snow each year. Excess rainwater runs off the surrounding hills and collects in natural, shallow marshes, or in basins our technicians have created called "flowages." In drought years, the marshes and flowages are dry, cloaked in grasses, sedges, bulrushes and cattails with willow and alder brush rimming their edges.
Our wetlands are extremely valuable for a number of reasons:
- Wetlands provide lush vegetation used by resident wetland wildlife for food and shelter.
- Wetlands are used by migrating birds as "fuel stops" during their spring and fall trips. These birds can rest and feed here before taking the next leg of their journey.
- Our wetlands provide one of Wisconsin’s largest migratory staging areas for sandhill cranes. Over 1500 sandhill cranes may visit our marshes during the fall flight.
- Wetlands serve as nurseries for muskrats, ducks, amphibians, insects and fish.
- Wetlands increase our drinking water quality by trapping sediments and filtering impurities from rainwater runoff before it mingles with the ground water below.
- Wetland plants use the naturally-occurring elements of nitrogen and phosphorous that would otherwise cause rampant weed growth and algae blooms in the water.
- Wetlands help control floods during bouts of heavy rain.
The value of wetlands cannot be overstated. Wetlands support more biological diversity than any other habitat in Wisconsin. Yet, even our state law allows people to fill in small wetlands. When people do this, they destroy all of the precious life and functions of an important part of Wisconsin’s landscape. Please help protect all of Wisconsin’s wetlands, no matter how small!
Learn more about Sandhill's Natural History:
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