Nearly 40 percent of the world's species depend on insect-based food webs like wetlands. A food web is the natural interconnection between the species of an ecosystem. This includes waterfowl, non-game birds and a variety of reptiles and amphibians like spotted turtles, eastern Massasauga and other snakes, tree frogs, toads, and more. 

For example, Lakeside Woods is a water source for the Great Blue Heron and migrating Sandhill Cranes.

Wetlands also are valuable for water quality improvement, shoreline erosion control, and help combat climate change!

“Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.”

-Sigurd F. Olson, The Singing Wilderness