OUR PROGRESS & PROMISE TO ERADICATE BUCKTHORN
ROUTE 176
Since 2015, Middlefork Savanna (Lake Forest) has been at the center of a battle map. The map is a rectangle of satellite imagery overlaid with red and green shapes. There are no military units or movements. It shows an advancement of a different sort: the ever-increasing effort to eradicate the invasive species European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) from the preserve and a 2,900-acre area around it. Bounded by I-94 and Routes 176, 43 and 60, this area contains Middlefork and about 700 public and private properties. Homes, businesses, churches, schools, a golf course, and the Chicago Bears team
I-9 4
ROUTE 43
headquarters all stand within its borders. MIDDLEFORK SAVANNA
For five years, Restoration Ecologist Matt Ueltzen and Assistant Public Affairs Manager Allison Frederick have worked to include these landowners in a largescale push to eradicate buckthorn locally. Called the Buckthorn Eradication Pilot Project, this program has cleared 112 acres of the pervasive invasive, mainly within Middlefork. These are the green areas on the map. But an estimated 528 privately owned acres still contain buckthorn. Those areas are striped in red.
PILOT PROJECT BOUNDARY CLEARED OF BUCKTHORN
ROUTE 60
NOT CLEARED OF BUCKTHORN
PRESERVE ENTRANCE
TRAIL
PRESERVE AREA
WATER