Bayou Cocodrie National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1992 to preserve waterfowl habitat and hardwood forest of the lower Mississippi river. The refuge is located in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, southwest of

Vidalia, Louisiana Vidalia is the largest city and the parish seat of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 4,299 as of the 2010 census. Vidalia is located on the west bank of the Mississippi River. The city of Natchez, Mississippi, lies ...

. It is named for the state-designated scenic river of Bayou Cocodrie. The Nature Conservancy purchased an core tract in 1991 from the Fisher Lumber Company, a subsidiary of

General Motors Corporation The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

. The Conservancy then sold the land to the US Fish and Wildlife Service over a span of five years. The bottomland hardwoods at Bayou Cocodrie have been noted as some of the last remaining, least disturbed timber of what historically was once a vast hardwood forest along the Mississippi River from Illinois to Louisiana.

Flora and fauna

The majority of the refuge is hardwood forest of oak, gum, and ash.Bayou Cocodrie pdf from Fish and Wildlife Service 1998
/ref> A site of hardwood is designated a natural resource area for study purposes. The remaining habitat is

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s utilized by wintering waterfowl such as

mallard The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Arge ...

, pintail and

shoveler duck The northern shoveler (; ''Spatula clypeata''), known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and across most of North America, wintering in southern Euro ...

species. The

wood duck The wood duck or Carolina duck (''Aix sponsa'') is a species of perching duck found in North America. The drake wood duck is one of the most colorful North American waterfowl. Description The wood duck is a medium-sized perching duck. A typi ...

is found in the refuge and is one of the reasons for the establishment of the Bayou Cocodrie National Wildlife Refuge. Other birds include

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (Bird of prey, raptor) in the family (biology), family Falco ...

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

and Swainson's warbler. At least 186 bird species have been identified in the refuge. The

Louisiana black bear The Louisiana black bear (''Ursus americanus luteolus''), one of 16 subspecies of the American black bear, is found in parts of Louisiana, mainly along the Mississippi River Valley and the Atchafalaya River Basin. It was classified as 'threatene ...

, federally listed as threatened since 1992, is known to occur in the Bayou Cocodrie. The historic range of the Louisiana black bear included southern Louisiana, Mississippi and east Texas, and is a subspecies of the

American black bear The American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), also called simply a black bear or sometimes a baribal, is a medium-sized bear endemic to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most widely distributed bear species. American black bear ...

.Federal Register vol.57, no.4 Jan 27,1992
DOI Rules and Regulations.

Notes

References

External links

Bayou Cocodrie National Wildlife Refuge
- official site {{authority control Protected areas of Concordia Parish, Louisiana National Wildlife Refuges in Louisiana Protected areas established in 1992 Wetlands and bayous of Louisiana Landforms of Concordia Parish, Louisiana

Flora and fauna

See also

Notes

References

External links