A Century of Sanctuary
America’s national wildlife refuge system celebrates 100 years. Minnesota has 12 national refuges, which offer wildlife a diverse choice of rest stops and homes.
By Greg Breining
A vital step in American conservation occurred March 14, 1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt, with a stroke of his pen, set aside 5 acres known as Pelican Island Bird Reservation in Florida’s Indian River lagoon to provide a sanctuary for brown pelicans and other showy birds driven nearly to extinction by market hunting.
In the 100 years since, this federal habitat-protection effort has grown into a system of 540 national wildlife refuges and more than 3,000 small waterfowl breeding and nesting areas, totaling more than 95 million acres (the size of Montana), including units in every state and U.S. territory. The national wildlife refuges have become a crucial component in the panoply of public lands that protect plant and animal communities in North America.
Refuges are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as natural places where the needs of wildlife come first. Among the key activities are land rehabilitation, such as prairie restoration in the Neal Smith NWR in Iowa, and recovery of rare species, such as manatees in Crystal River NWR in Florida, native birds in Hakalau Forest NWR in Hawaii, and whooping cranes in Chassahowitzka NWR in Florida. National wildlife refuges harbor more than 250 endangered plants and animals.
In Minnesota, 12 national wildlife refuges attract nearly 2 million hunters, anglers, hikers, and wildlife watchers each year.
In the northwestern corner of Minnesota, the 61,500-acre Agassiz NWR harbors moose and gray wolves in a patchwork of prairie potholes and coniferous forest.
Minnesota Valley NWR forms a nearly 12,000-acre oasis of wetlands and bottomland forest in the midst of the burgeoning Twin Cities. Home to waterfowl, deer, turkeys, and small mammals, this surprising refuge attracts more than 200,000 human visitors each year and has recently harbored at least one cougar.
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, the oldest (1924) and largest refuge in the state, stretches from Wabasha, Minn., to Rock Island, Ill. Its 233,000 acres comprise backwaters, wetlands, islands, and bluffs. An important migration corridor, it attracts hundreds of bald eagles and thousands of tundra swans.
Minnesota’s newest refuge, Northern Tallgrass Prairie NWR, was established in 1999 with headquarters in Odessa, Minn. It incorporates land and easement purchases in Minnesota and Iowa to protect remnants of the northern tallgrass prairie, a grassland plant community that once stretched for thousands of square miles across the upper Midwest but has nearly vanished because of agriculture.
Throughout the country and in Minnesota, national wildlife refuges have been "really critical to our wildlife resources," said Tim Bremicker, director of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife. Moreover, he says, they are critical to outdoor and environmental education, particularly in urban areas. In this state alone, more than 30,000 schoolchildren take part in USFWS educational programs each year. Without areas such as Minnesota Valley NWR, many city kids would have no opportunities to encounter a large tract of natural land.
For information on centennial events at Minnesota refuges, call 800-344-9453.
Greg Breining, St. Paul, is contributing editor of the Volunteer and author of Wild Shore.