THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
Published Quarterly by the 
ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, III. 60605 
imber 156 
December 1970 
THREE NEW TRACT ACQUISITIONS 
ARE TERMED ‘MAJOR EVENTS’ IN THE 
ILLINOIS NATURE PRESERVE PROGRAM 
le of the most spectacular and distinctive stream valleys in Illinois was 
juired in September by the Illinois Department of Conservation. 
The newly acquired area is the 100-foot “deep heart” of Lusk Creek 
ayon, located north of Golconda in Pope County. 
It is termed “a sandstone-framed window on the death of the Illinois 
acier,” and a “priceless natural resource for students and lovers of 
ture—the delight of generations yet unborn.” 
tfforts at preservation have ac- 
erated since 1965 when the USS. 
rest Service outlined plans for 
dam that would impound many 
the site’s unique botanical and 
logical features. 
fhe 280-acre Lusk Creek canyon 
rchase is lone of three new ac- 
sitions described by the depart- 
nt as “major events in the nature 
serves program throughout IIli- 
s.’ Also added to the preserves 
tem is the Heron Pond swamp 
ir Vienna — a haven for massive 
ress trees and a sanctuary for 
h rarities as the American egret 
and Fults Hill prairie, located 
372 acres of bluffs and hills near 
Mississippi river in Monroe 
inty. 
n all, the package represents 
28 acres of land preserved by 
» state for conservation. Total 
chase price for properties at all 
three sites was $377,803, according 
to Robert Corrigan, chief of the 
division of land acquisition for the 
conservation department. 
Lusk Creek has been described by 
naturalists as unique to Illinois in 
many ways; among its 800 known 
varieties of flowering plants and 
ferns are scme that occur nowhere 
else in Illinois. Some of the con- 
tinually-moist bluff walls are 
adorned with spaghnum moss, usual- 
ly found in northern bogs. 
The canyon’s main gorge — its 
most eye-filling feature — cradles 
a clear-running stream beneath 
sheer sandstone walls rising to 100 
feet and more. Along the bluff 
ledges botanists have _ identified 
unusual northern relic plant popu- 
lations of Ice Age origin. The open 
and closed gentian and yellow trum- 
pet honeysuckle flourish in the can- 
yon, as do three kinds of ground 
