The Southern Kettle Moraine region is a truly special place. Ancient glaciers sculpted a dramatic landscape of hills, kettles (glacial depressions), and wetlands that today support an extraordinary mosaic of unique habitats, threatened species, and vast expanses of undeveloped lands. This globally important region deserves our care, stewardship, and long-term protection.
Bluff Creek State Natural Area in the Kettle Moraine State Forest – Southern Unit. Photo by Joshua Mayer
The biggest and the best
No matter how you slice it, the Southern Kettles are special. The area is located roughly halfway between Wisconsin’s two largest cities. And yet it contains some of the biggest swaths of undeveloped land in the entire southeastern part of the state. The Southern Kettles area extends southward towards the Illinois border and northward to I-94. The publicly owned lands of the Kettle Moraine State Forest are an anchor at the center of the Southern Kettles, but 65% of the area is privately owned. This combination of private and public land is ripe for collaborative stewardship, conservation, and care.
The Southern Kettle Moraine contains one of the largest, most intact arrangements of fire-dependent oak savannas, oak woodlands, fens, and wet prairies remaining anywhere in the world. This region supports a large number of Species of Greatest Conservation Need according to Wisconsin’s Wildlife Action Plan. It also functions as a global refuge for rare ecosystems and species threatened with extinction.
The Southern Kettle Moraine Conservation Opportunity Area is a landscape-sized island of biodiversity situated between our state’s capital and our largest city.
Key habitats of the Southern Kettles
The Southern Kettles contain five primary habitats that are high priorities for conservation: wet prairies, oak savannas and woodlands, fens, sedge meadows, and bogs. These habitats are not only rare in Wisconsin, but also rare in the Midwest. And when taken as a whole they are – believe it or not – rare in the world. They support many key native plants and animal species.
Cycle through the rare habitats of the Southern Kettles. Wet-mesic prairie at Scuppernong Prairie State Natural Area by Joshua Mayer. Kettle Moraine Oak Opening State Natural Area by Joshua Mayer. Clover Valley Fen State Natural Area by Joshua Mayer. Grasshopper on sedge at Faville Prairie State Natural Area by Joshua Mayer. Beulah Bog State Natural Area by Joshua Mayer.
Chief among these communities are the prairies and oak savannas of the Southern Kettles, where excellent examples of these rare ecosystems can be found scattered throughout the undulating hills. According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), prairie and oak savanna natural communities are the most endangered natural communities in Wisconsin and across the Midwest. They are also among the most decimated in the world. Their rarity can be attributed in large part to plowing and tilling for agriculture during European settlement and forest succession due to lack of fire on the landscape. Today there is continued pressure from development from nearby population centers.
Additionally, the Southern Kettles area is home to some important (and quite large) wetlands. Scuppernong Marsh, for example, is the largest wet prairie complex east of the Mississippi. It includes the largest calcareous fen (a type of wetland with high-carbonate groundwater and particularly diverse plant life) in Wisconsin.
NRF board and staff at Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail in the Southern Kettles. Photo by Angela Curtes
Cultural and ecological significance of the Southern Kettles
The hill that European settlers named Bald Bluff is an environmentally and culturally important feature of the region, located within the Kettle Moraine Oak Opening State Natural Area. At 1,050 feet above seal level, Bald Bluff is one of the highest points in this part of Wisconsin. It has been used by the Potawatomi and other indigenous peoples as a landmark and gathering place.
View from Bald Bluff. Photo by Aaron Carlson
The Wisconsin DNR’s Wildlife Action Plan highlighted the Southern Kettles as a “Conservation Opportunity Area of Global Significance.” The Wisconsin Wetland Association has identified three “Wetland Gems” in the area. The Nature Conservancy and the Center for Resilient Conservation Science have ranked it highly on their Resilient Land Mapping Tool. National Audubon has designated several “Important Bird Areas” in and around the area. The list of organizations recognizing the specialness of this region goes on and on.
The glacial hills, kettle lakes, and verdant prairies of the Southern Kettles are full of wildlife. Wisconsin hosts its share of endangered and threatened species, and many are found here including one of Wisconsin’s largest concentrations of hooded warbler, which is listed as Threatened.
The Kettle Moraine State Forest and Lulu Lake State Natural Area provide the backbone of this area and provide critical habitat for rare species and natural communities that have largely disappeared from the landscape otherwise.
Hooded warbler perched on a stick on the forest floor. Photo by Jeff Galligan
The human story
1.5 million people enjoy hiking, birding, biking, fishing, paddling, camping, hunting, and more in the Southern Kettles every year. Thomas Ganfield was one of them.
Thomas lived on Whitewater Lake in the Southern Kettles for over 20 years. He was an environmental engineer and passionate conservationist who volunteered regularly with several local environmental nonprofits. Additionally, he assisted the DNR with land management and rare plant surveys.
As a volunteer helping to restore state natural areas within the southern Kettle Moraine region, I became fascinated with a small site close to home. I learned about the site’s history, its restoration practices and plant assemblages.
Thomas was also a long-term NRF member who included NRF in his will. When he passed in 2024, the funding he designated to NRF was so significant that it allowed us to launch our landscape-scale work in the Southern Kettles landscape that he loved so well.
If somebody had a question about wildlife whether about trees, plants & flowers, birds, or animals, Thomas was always there with an answer and was always happy to lead and teach others about our land.
Thomas Ganfield’s support through his estate gift is a major catalyst for NRF’s efforts in the region. Thomas’s brother David, pictured at center with resident and State Natural Area volunteer Ginny Coburn (left), and NRF Executive Director David Clutter (right) accepted thanks for his brother’s significant contribution at a member gathering in September 2025.
Unique collaborations
Because of its universally recognized importance, great conservation work has been happening in the Southern Kettles and across southeastern Wisconsin for decades. Land trusts, local friends groups, the DNR, and others have been actively working to protect key local sites.
Recently, a group of conservation organizations have come together to expand this work to a larger, landscape scale. The Southeast Wisconsin Conservation Collaborative is bringing together state agencies, land trusts, local watershed and community organizations, and national conservation groups to co-create a resilient future for the landscape.
Field Trip participants learn about the history of the site from DNR Field Trip leader Pete Duerkop (left) at Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail in the Kettle Moraine State Forest – Southern Unit during a NRF Field Trip. Photo by Caitlin Williamson
Thanks in large part to the generosity of Thomas Ganfield, NRF has started actively supporting this collaborative. We aim to secure more funding for work on the ground, expand and support the collaboration by hiring a coordinator, and build capacity to grow local conservation efforts.
In conservation, we can accomplish more together than we can separately. We share a common vision for the Southern Kettles area: a thriving, connected future for this unique landscape.
Thank you to our members, the estate of Thomas Ganfield, and the Network for Landscape Conservation for supporting our landscape-scale conservation work in the extraordinary, globally important Southern Kettles.
Written by Shelly Torkelson, Director of Communications