Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge

Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge is a developing cross-state refuge in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, designed not as one continuous preserve but as a network of prairie, wetland, and oak savanna parcels in the northern Chicago and southern Milwaukee region. Named for the American tamarack, it occupies wetlands long used by Potawatomi communities. The refuge was created to protect a biologically rich landscape that had been heavily altered by twentieth-century development, yet still contained many threatened and endangered species. Approved in 2012 and launched with its first land acquisition in 2013, it has expanded gradually, reflecting a continuing effort to reconnect habitat in a heavily urbanized part of the Midwest.

Hartland, Illinois · United States