The Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge is located in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Inner Banks The Inner Banks is a neologism made up by developers and tourism promoters to describe the inland coastal region of eastern North Carolina. Without historical precedent, the term "Inner Banks" is an early 21st-century construct that is part of a ...

on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in Hyde, Tyrrell, and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Counties,

. Its headquarters is located in Columbia. Pocosin Lakes NWR was established in 1990. Originally, the southwestern portion of the refuge, now known as the Pungo Unit, was established in 1963 as the Pungo National Wildlife Refuge, but was merged in 1990 with Pocosin Lakes. The National Wildlife Refuge is , and approximately were donated. The refuge is named for the

pocosin A pocosin is a type of palustrine wetland with deep, acidic, sandy, peat soils. Groundwater saturates the soil except during brief seasonal dry spells and during prolonged droughts. Pocosin soils are nutrient-deficient (oligotrophic), especially ...

peat wetlands that make up the majority of the protected habitat. This refuge is home to indigenous animals such as the

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

alligator An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additiona ...

, two species of

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUC ...

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 93 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North ...

, beaver, river otter, mink, and red wolf. It was the site chosen for the reintroduction of the endangered red wolf in 1987. It is located along the Atlantic Flyway and is home to more than 200 species of birds. The Pungo Lake unit is a notable overwintering site for

Tundra swan The tundra swan (''Cygnus columbianus'') is a small swan of the Holarctic. The two taxa within it are usually regarded as conspecific, but are also sometimes split into two species: Bewick's swan (''Cygnus bewickii'') of the Palaearctic and th ...

snow geese The snow goose (''Anser caerulescens'') is a species of goose native to North America. Both white and dark morphs exist, the latter often known as blue goose. Its name derives from the typically white plumage. The species was previously placed ...

, and many species of ducks, with about 100,000 waterfowl in residence between November and January. __TOC__

Ecology and Conservation

Nearly one-third of the refuge is currently undergoing hydrology restoration.

Past Wildfires

Two notable wildfires have burned within the Pocosin Lakes NWR since its protection. In April 1985, the Allen Road Fire ignited in the refuge, burning nearly 100,000 acres over three weeks and requiring assistance from the Marines to extinguish the peat 'ground fires' it left in its wake. On June 1, 2008, lightning struck the refuge and started a wildfire known as the Evans Road Fire that had, , spread to about , and burned much of the same land before it was completely contained. The fire was declared out on January 9, 2009.

History

Indigenous Occupants

Human presence in the Pocosin Lakes region likely dates back as many as 10,000 years. Though little systematic archaeological investigation of the Pocosin Lakes NWR has been undertaken, the adjacent Phelps Lake was found to contain more than 30 dugout canoes, some as many as 4,400 years old. Indigenous people likely lived nearby, and accounts from early in the refuge's documented history mention the presence of various Native American artifacts on the shores of Pungo Lake. The region was populated by tribes of

Algonquian peoples The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. T ...

up until the late

Woodland period In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...

. The word "pocosin" itself comes from an Algonquian language via an uncertain etymology. While tribal organization and boundaries changed rapidly during the era of colonization, as conflict and disease inflicted high mortality rates on indigenous peoples, the

Secotan The Secotans were one of several groups of American Indians dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonists had varying degrees of contact. Secotan villages included the Secotan, Aquascogoc, Dasamonguep ...

and

Machapunga The Machapunga are a small Algonquian language-speaking Native American tribe from coastal northeastern North Carolina. They were part of the Secotan people. They were a group from the Powhatan Confederacy who migrated from present-day Virgini ...

tribes are both recorded in the area. The Machapunga people and Pungo Lake may share name roots; an 1888 account of a group of displaced "Mattamuskeet Indians" in Robeson County reports that they referred to Pungo Lake as Mattapungo.

Colonization and Development

Following European colonization, the pocosin lakes were quickly modified and developed in an attempt to expand available crop land. In 1840, the state (via its agent "The Literary Board") began a decade-long attempt to drain Pungo Lake in what is now the Pocosin Lakes NWR. A 25-foot-wide canal was excavated by enslaved people, who worked knee-deep in water and were housed in "shanties" along the edges of the canals. Though efforts to drain the lake were eventually abandoned when little usable land was revealed, the canal construction did drop the lake's surface level by at least 5 feet, and the Pungo Lake Canal still extends from the lake to the

Pungo River The Pungo River is a river in eastern North Carolina, United States. It originally began in the Great Dismal Swamp in Washington County, North Carolina; the upper part of the river has since been supplanted by the Pungo River Canal, dug in the 19 ...

Representation in Media and Art

* Composer

Kenneth Frazelle Kenneth Frazelle (born December 2, 1955) is an American composer. Early life and studies Frazelle was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, United States. Both his parents were from small tobacco farms near Richlands, North Carolina. His mot ...

wrote a piece called "“The Swans at Pungo Lake" for the

North Carolina Symphony The North Carolina Symphony (NCS) is an American orchestra based in Raleigh, North Carolina, with sixty-six full-time musicians. The orchestra performs in Meymandi Concert Hall and performs occasionally with the Carolina Ballet and the Opera Com ...

in 2006.

References

External links

Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge Home Page
* {{authority control National Wildlife Refuges in North Carolina Protected areas of Hyde County, North Carolina Protected areas of Tyrrell County, North Carolina Protected areas of Washington County, North Carolina