This area is part of the Fox Valley Park District's natural grasslands program. These grassland areas improve animal habitat, help control undesirable species, save energy, reduce pollution, absorb storm water, and reduce maintenance costs. This best-practices approach to land management includes seeding with native flowers and grasses. Once the native seedlings have gained a foothold, many of these naturalized areas undergo occasional burns or selective weeding to keep out undesirable plants. Eventually the grassland areas will resemble the plant communities that grew here more than 150 years ago, when the Illinois landscape was 95% prairie.