On December 30th, the Eno River Association acquired 6.4 acres of land for addition into the Eno River State Park. The property straddles the Durham – Orange county line off Sparger Road. The Association purchased the property from local landowner Curtis Crosby using funds donated to the Association’s Margaret C. Nygard Land Acquisition Fund. Many of the more recent gifts made to the fund were in memory of Margaret Nygard’s husband, Holger Nygard, who died in the spring of this year. Though small, the property provides an important forested buffer to the Eno River and increased connectivity for wildlife in an area where the park was very narrow along the river. This section of the Eno is designated as a Significant Natural Heritage Area by the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, partly due to rare mussels like the Atlantic pigtoe, Yellow lampmussel, and Eastern lampmussel that live there. The land is surrounded by the State Park on two sides and comes within 150-feet of the North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail which runs along the river. The property will protect the view-shed of the trail by providing a scenic buffer from the adjacent residential developments and Sparger Road.