Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area

Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area is a 2734 acre property located in Rock County. The property follows the Sugar River bottoms through the Rock County Town of Avon, from County Highway T on the Rock/Green County line to the Illinois border. Take State Highway 81 west from Beloit for 10 miles, then west on Beloit-Newark Road 3 miles. From north, go south on County T, 6 miles from State Highway 11 at Brodhead, turning east on Beloit-Newark Road.

Avon Bottoms features a lowland hardwood forest in the floodplain of the meandering Sugar River. Large silver maples, swamp white oaks, and green ash dominate the diverse canopy of this wet-mesic forest. Other tree species are shagbark hickory, hackberry, cottonwood, bitternut hickory, bur oak, American elm, and basswood. Sycamores, at the northern limit of their range, are occasionally present and black willows are common along the river. Numerous sloughs and old oxbows wind among bottomland hardwoods, grassland and agricultural cropland.

Management

Management Objective

Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area was begun in 1960 as a Federal Aid in Fish and Wildlife Restoration project to provide public hunting and produce ducks and pheasants.

The Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area is identified as a Conservation Opportunity Area (COA) of state significance for the conservation of floodplain forest communities in Wisconsin’s Wildlife Action Plan. The wildlife area is managed to provide opportunities for public hunting, fishing, trapping and other outdoor recreation while protecting the qualities of the unique native communities and associated species found on the property. The floodplain forest management objective is to protect the ecological river corridor gradients from lowland to uplands, along with protection of the floodplain corridor. Forest management has been primarily passive, with more extensive efforts to maintain grassland communities on the uplands through prairie restoration and management, mowing, prescribed burning and herbicide treatments. Where feasible, populations of invasive species are controlled or eliminated by cutting, pulling, burning, herbicide treatment and/or bio-control.

Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area is gaining new respect for its wild nature in close proximity to Wisconsin and Illinois population centers. Surrounding the many sloughs and oxbows of the lower Sugar River, the property includes two State Natural Areas set aside for their rare intact plant communities, and was recognized in 2006 by the Wisconsin Land Legacy Report as part of Legacy aquatic and floodplain communities. Just recently, Avon Bottoms was declared a Wisconsin Important Bird Area, known for breeding Cerulean and Yellow-throated warbler, Acadian Flycatcher, and Yellow-crowned night-heron. The floodplain forest and grassy sloughs are heavily used by migrating birds of all description.

Read more about Restoring Wetlands in the Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area [PDF 610KB]