Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area in southern Wisconsin along the Illinois border protects an important stretch of the Sugar River floodplain. Established in 1960 through a federal wildlife restoration project to improve duck and pheasant populations and attract hunters, it later came to emphasize broader habitat preservation. The area now sustains a substantial river-bottom landscape valued for wildlife, recreation, and wetland diversity. Bottomland hardwood forest covers more than a third of the property, and the floodplain is noted for large swamp white oaks important to local biodiversity. Additional easements and the consolidation of state natural areas have expanded protection for this floodplain forest and wet prairie habitat.