SPRINGVILLE — The chairman of medical device maker Cook Group Inc. has given the state's Bicentennial Nature Trust a boost with the decision to protect 1,500 acres of a southern Indiana farm that includes a heron rookery.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources says Steve Ferguson of Bloomington plans to protect the land on a family farm near the Lawrence County of Springville through a conservation easement that guards the land against development. The agency said Thursday that it's believed to be one of the largest private land conservation gifts in state history.
The property about 20 miles southwest of Bloomington was homesteaded in 1816, the year Indiana became a state.
Gov. Mitch Daniels began the Bicentennial Nature Trust this year to mark Indiana's 200th anniversary in 2016.
