The 713-acre West Branch features a variety of habitats, plants and animals. Originally purchased to help with flood control, the forest preserve also features a reservoir that collects and naturally filters stormwater.
West Branch contains two lakes, wetlands, a tallgrass meadow, a wet prairie, an immature floodplain forest, and a rare fen and hosts a variety of reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds, including grassland birds and migrating and nesting shorebirds.
