Leola Marsh Wildlife Area

Leola Marsh Wildlife Area was formerly a marsh that was drained in the early 1900s.  The topography is flat and the landscape is open and treeless.  The grass-dominated habitat is a mixture of cool and warm-season grasses, row crops and grazed pastures, prairie, old-field, shrub and woodland that provides vital habitat for a diversity of wildlife species.

Wisconsin’s native Greater Prairie Chickens were first studied in this Wildlife Area by Frederick and Frances Hamerstrom in the 1950s. Much of the property was purchased to protect the current grassland habitat in the southern portion of the prairie chicken range. To maintain the open grassland landscape needed by these birds and other grassland wildlife, management techniques such as prescribed burning, pasturing and mowing are used.

The Wildlife Area represents one of the best opportunities in Wisconsin for large-scale grassland management, and the property supports many of the state’s priority grassland species. Besides the threatened Greater Prairie Chicken, this site has high numbers of northern harrier, upland sandpiper, sedge wren, Henslow’s sparrow, field sparrow, vesper sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, clay-colored sparrow, savannah sparrow, bobolink, eastern meadowlark, and western meadowlark.

Source: WDNR & Wisconsin Important Bird Areas