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The Sue and Wes Dixon Waterfowl Refuge is a 3,100-acre riverine wetland in Putnam County, Illinois. Located just south of the county seat of Hennepin, it occupies the former site of ''Hennepin Lake'' and adjacent ''Hopper Lake''. The reconstructed wetland is a Ramsar Site.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = The Wetlands Initiative )〕 ==History== Historically, the banks of the Illinois River were lined with shallow lakes and wetlands, through which a broad shallow river flowed in a slow, braided course. The broad, bluff-lined river basin was rich in fish, shellfish, waterfowl, and peltry, exploited by Native Americans and by 1800s pioneers.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = The Wetlands Initiative )〕 The Hennepin area was so rich in wetland productivity that the New York City-based American Fur Company operated a fur-trading post here in the 1810s. Illinois pioneer Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard traded for furs on the banks of Hennepin Lake in 1818-1819.〔 〕 In the early decades of the 1900s, the invention of the steam shovel seemed to make it possible to commoditize and exploit much of the river lowlands, including Hennepin Lake and Hopper Lake. In 1908, local landowners formed the ''Hennepin Drainage and Levee District''. Financial institutions lent money for levees, ditches, tile lines, and drainage pumps.〔 Soon the watery, muddy ground was remapped as arable cropland.〔 〕 With recurring crop surpluses in the closing years of the 20th century, many of the Illinois River drainage districts came to be seen as mistakes. In some cases, including the Hennepin Drainage and Levee District, landowners found the ongoing cost of maintaining and repairing the levee as well as the energy cost of the necessary pumping difficult to support from farming receipts. In 2000 eight farm families agreed to sell most of the Hennepin drainage district to a young not-for-profit conservation organization, (the Wetlands Initiative ). In 2001 the organization turned off the pump, began plugging or removing agricultural drainage tiles, and initiated various types of restoration work. A complex pattern of wet meadows, wet and dry prairies, marshes, and small waterbodies emerged in addition to the historic backwater lakes.〔 In December 2014, the Wetland Initiative purchased of 417 acres of adjacent upland, the ''Hickory Hollow'' parcel adjoining Illinois Route 26. The parcel, of which 283 acres will be kept as a permanent addition and restored to a mix of habitats, includes the primary groundwater drainage zone into the Refuge's ''(Dore Seep )'', a 26-acre dedicated (Illinois Nature Preserve ) located near the site's southern end.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dixon Waterfowl Refuge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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