Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge is a part of the U.S. system of

National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge System is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to c ...

s consisting of an area of Northwest Tennessee and Western Kentucky that consists primarily of a buffer zone around

Reelfoot Lake Reelfoot Lake is a shallow natural lake located in the northwest portion of the U.S. state of Tennessee, in Lake and Obion Counties. Much of it is swamp-like, with bayou-like ditches (some natural, some man-made) connecting more open bodies of wate ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

's only large natural lake. It formed after the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812 and is one of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

Basin's richest locations for waterfowl, aquatic life, and other wildlife. It covers 10,428 acres (4,220 ha) and comprises primarily lands adjacent to the lake that have not been included in the Tennessee State Park system. The refuge was established in 1941 and has been expanded on several occasions. Some of it consists of

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

land that is leased to farmers, but they are required to use stricter

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...

practices than were widespread when the same land was held in private ownership, primarily to lessen the

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

ation of the lake and surrounding bodies of water.

References

Refuge profile

External links

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Refuge website
Protected areas of Fulton County, Kentucky Protected areas of Lake County, Tennessee Protected areas of Obion County, Tennessee National Wildlife Refuges in Kentucky National Wildlife Refuges in Tennessee Protected areas established in 1941 {{Kentucky-protected-area-stub