The "Iônes"

The major bed of Rhône river enclose a plain constituted of sand, slime and rollers. Those materials light enough to be transported by high levels of the river, led to some great modifications of the river path. This natural activity of the river let some special landscapes: the secondary riverbeds called Iônes and the islands.

These, when not exploited anymore in an agricultural way, are normally covered with forests, but those actual forests result from a human orientation given for dozens of years. Nevertheless the potentiality of those places to support very diversified species of the alluvial forest is still intact.

The "Ile du Beurre" (Butter Island), is a protected territory, situated near Condrieu and constitute a reserve where one can even see beavers. Those are the biggest rodents existing in Europe (can reach 30 Kg). They build huts on the sides of the river where they can also find vegetal food and especially foliage and bark of weeping willows