Disturbances have damaged the complex web of life. Several snail and mussel populations are gone or considered endangered or threatened. Bewick's wren and Swainson's warbler appear extinct in the area. The hellbender salamander and alligator snapping turtle have not been seen for decades. The once common great egret is hardly seen. And only a few of several once common tree species are left.
But local conservationists knew that a wildlife resource still remained despite the severe degradation. Preservationists, hunters, and fishers alike took action to salvage the unique ecosystem. The Citizens Committee to Save the Cache was organized in 1979, and in 1982 it undertook construction of a low dam, financed by The Nature Conservancy, to replace the natural dam removed by earlier dredgers. The Committee worked hard to to slow the sedimentation that was smothering the swamps. It worked, says Hutchison, because the swamps and sloughs began to be spared by the detention of muddy water in the main river channel.
Sedimentation, however, was still a major problem. Restoration and preservation required a much bigger effort. That effort took further shape in 1990 when Cypress Creek NWR was established with a boundary that authorizes an eventual 35,529-acre area, the result of the promotion by Hutchison and the Citizens Committee. The current 13,650-acre refuge added to the holdings of other conservation-minded landowners including the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, and Ducks Unlimited, Inc., all of whom in 1993 formed a joint venture partnership to protect the Cache River wetlands. Ducks Unlimited later sold its 1,000 acres to the refuge.
The Nature Conservancy expects to eventually transfer its holdings to the refuge, too. The 12,000-acre State Natural Area lies upstream from the refuge, an area the state began acquiring in 1970. A further testament to the significance of this unusual area is the overlap of the physical features of four geographic regions—one of only six places in the United States where this many regions come together and intermingle their plant communities. It is here that species from the coastal plains, Ozark, lower Mississippi bottomlands, and Shawnee Hills regions are found together.
Because of their international importance, in 1994 the Cache River wetlands were designated under criteria of the Ramsar treaty for the conservation of wetlands especially important to waterfowl. Eighty countries around the world have adopted the terms of the international treaty for designating such wetlands.
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