JOHNSON COUNTY — A nature preserve near the Brown-Johnson County line has expanded by 40 acres.
Last month, the state Natural Resources Commission approved additions to the Laura Hare Nature Preserve at Blossom Hollow in Johnson County.
This is a different place than the Laura Hare Nature Preserve at Downey Hill, which is in southern Brown County off Valley Branch Road.
The Laura Hare Preserve at Blossom Hollow is 4 miles south of Trafalgar and 4.5 miles east of Morgantown, just south of Lamb Lake.
The land is owned and managed by Central Indiana Land Trust. It is open to the public and contains about 2 miles of hiking trails.
This preserve was made possible by a $200,000 gift from the Dr. Laura Hare Charitable Trust in 2012, as well as funding from the Indiana Heritage Trust. Central Indiana Land Trust expanded it in 2016 to incorporate 40 acres to the south, protecting the forested watershed of the streams flowing through the preserve.
The 149-acre property is part of the Hills of Gold conservation area, along with Glacier’s End, near the area where the Wisconsin glacier stopped near the Brown County hills.
The recent addition in Johnson County protects 40 acres of forest interior habitat, mostly oak-hickory.
“This nature preserve is surrounded by other forested parcels, most of which are permanently protected by conservation easements, and represents an example of a forest interior habitat,” reads a report linked from the NRC’s meeting agenda. “All of these community types, along with their flora and fauna, contain many species dependent upon large, unfragmented forest ecosystems.”
Two species of shrew, the pigmy shrew and the smoky shrew, are found within the preserve and are classified as State Special Concern under the Species of Greatest Conservation Need program, the Natural Resource Commission reports. Neotropical migrant birds use this site as a nesting habitat; red-shouldered hawks, Eastern box turtles and bald eagles also can be found in this preserve.
Laura Hare died in May 2006 at 100 years old. She earned a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University, taught biology for two years at Shortridge High School, then went on to earn a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of Chicago, according to her obituary. She later specialized in internal medicine at Indiana University.
She was a member of the Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, the Nature Conservancy and many other groups.
For a map, directions and more information about the Laura Hare Nature Preserve at Blossom Hollow, visit conservingindiana.org/preserves.
