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2005 — the present
The place: Eagle Marsh, 831 acres on Fort Wayne's southwest edge, is the Great Marsh of the first accounts partially put back. The Little River Wetlands Project established the preserve in 2005 on farmed wetland in the Little River valley, on the St. Lawrence continental divide itself, and has planted over 45,000 trees, shrubs, and native plants across it; the Project protects more than 1,300 acres in the watershed in all. The marsh is named for its eagles, and its stars, in the Project's account, are "bald eagles and sandhill cranes… returning to this restored marsh in the portage area of southwest Allen County."
The wall: The same divide that made the portage made Eagle Marsh a border crossing. Federal scientists judged in 2010 that after Chicago's waterways, this marsh was the second most likely place for invasive Asian carp — bighead and silver carp established in the Wabash system — to cross into the Great Lakes basin in a great flood. The response is in the ground: a 1,250-foot chain-link fence in 2010, replaced in 2015 by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earthen berm some 9,000 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 8 to 10 feet high, built to hold back a 100-year flood plus two feet. The Post-Tribune's account records that floodwaters have since risen to crossing height three times — and, in the Project's counts, still no sign of Asian carp in the marsh. The muskrat, mink, blue-spotted salamanders, and the state-special-concern northern leopard frogs the reporters found are the native side of the same ledger.
The count: What restoration produced is measured in the next article's checklists; the marsh's own milestone came when birder Jon Jenkins noted an olive-sided flycatcher there — bird species number 250 for Eagle Marsh, in compiler Ed Powers's fifteen-year list. The "Lost Birds of Canal Days" marker stands on the marsh's towpath trail (see The pigeons, above): the place that counts the returning birds also memorializes the ones that will not return.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society, "Eagle Marsh Nature Preserve" and "Little River Wetlands Project" (the 2005 establishment; the 2015 berm's dimensions; the species milestones), acgsi.org; Little River Wetlands Project (831 acres; 45,000 plantings; 1,300 acres protected), lrwp.org.
- Post-Tribune (Chicago Tribune), "Fort Wayne builds berm to keep Asian carp out" (the 2010 assessment and fence; the berm; the three flood tests).