A swamp is a forested wetland. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation or soil saturation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps. In the boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more formally termed a bog, fen, or muskeg. Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo.
Catahoula Parish is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,906. Its seat is Harrisonburg, on the Ouachita River. The parish was formed in 1808, shortly after the United States acquired this territory in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
Avoyelles is a parish located in central eastern Louisiana on the Red River where it effectively becomes the Atchafalaya River and meets the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,693. The parish seat is Marksville. The parish was created in 1807, with the name deriving from the French name for the historic Avoyel people, one of the local Indian tribes at the time of European encounter.
Lake Pontchartrain is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of 630 square miles (1,600 km2) with an average depth of 12 to 14 feet. Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about 40 miles (64 km) from west to east and 24 miles (39 km) from south to north.
The Ouachita River is a 605-mile-long (974 km) river that runs south and east through the U.S. states of Arkansas and Louisiana, joining the Tensas River to form the Black River near Jonesville, Louisiana. It is the 25th-longest river in the United States.
The Piney Woods is a temperate coniferous forest terrestrial ecoregion in the Southern United States covering 54,400 square miles (141,000 km2) of East Texas, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and southeastern Oklahoma. These coniferous forests are dominated by several species of pine as well as hardwoods including hickory and oak. Historically the most dense part of this forest region was the Big Thicket though the lumber industry dramatically reduced the forest concentration in this area and throughout the Piney Woods during the 19th and 20th centuries. The World Wide Fund for Nature considers the Piney Woods to be one of the critically endangered ecoregions of the United States. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines most of this ecoregion as the South Central Plains.
Kisatchie National Forest, the only National forest in Louisiana, United States, is located in the forested piney hills and hardwood bottoms of seven central and northern parishes. It is part of the Cenozoic uplands and has large areas of longleaf pine forests. It is one of the largest pieces of natural landscape in Louisiana, with some 604,000 acres (2,440 km2) of public land, more than half of which is vital longleaf pine and flatwoods vegetation. These support many rare plant and animal species. There are also rare habitats, such as hillside seepage bogs and calcareous prairies. The forest also contains and provides a buffer for the Kisatchie Hills Wilderness, a nationally designated wilderness area that contributes to protecting biodiversity of the coastal plain region of the United States.
Lake Oroville is a reservoir formed by the Oroville Dam impounding the Feather River, located in Butte County, northern California. The lake is situated 5 miles (8 km) northeast of the city of Oroville, within the Lake Oroville State Recreation Area, in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Known as the second-largest reservoir in California, Lake Oroville is treated as a keystone facility within the California State Water Project by storing water, providing flood control, recreation, freshwater releases to assist in controlling the salinity intrusion into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and protecting fish and wildlife.
The Mississippi River Delta is the confluence of the Mississippi River with the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, southeastern United States. The river delta is a three-million-acre area of land that stretches from Vermilion Bay on the west, to the Chandeleur Islands in the east, on Louisiana's southeastern coast. It is part of the Gulf of Mexico and the Louisiana coastal plain, one of the largest areas of coastal wetlands in the United States. The Mississippi River Delta is the 7th largest river delta on Earth (USGS) and is an important coastal region for the United States, containing more than 2.7 million acres of coastal wetlands and 37% of the estuarine marsh in the conterminous U.S. The coastal area is the nation's largest drainage basin and drains about 41% of the contiguous United States into the Gulf of Mexico at an average rate of 470,000 cubic feet per second.
The Little River is a 96-mile-long (154 km) tributary of the Ouachita (Black) River in central Louisiana in the United States. Via the Ouachita and Red rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River. According to the Geographic Names Information System, the Little River has also been known historically as "Bayou Des Nacitoches," "Catahoula Bayou," and "Catahoula River."
Horicon Marsh is a marsh located in northern Dodge and southern Fond du Lac counties of Wisconsin. It is the site of both a national and a state wildlife refuge. The silted-up glacial lake is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States.
Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge, located in east central Louisiana, United States, 12 miles (19 km) east of Jena, was established in 1958 as a wintering area for migratory waterfowl. The refuge contains 25,162 acres (101.83 km2) divided into two units. The 6,671-acre (27 km2) Headquarters Unit borders nine miles (14 km) of the northeast shore of Catahoula Lake, a 26,000-acre (110 km2) natural wetland renowned for its large concentrations of migratory waterfowl. The 18,491-acre (74.83 km2) Bushley Bayou Unit, located 8 miles (13 km) west of Jonesville, was established May 16, 2001. This acquisition was made possible through a partnership agreement between The Conservation Fund, American Electric Power, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The habitat found at the refuge is primarily lowland hardwood forest subject to seasonal backwater flooding from the Ouachita, and Red Rivers.
Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge is located in Cameron and Evangeline Parishes in southwestern Louisiana, was established in 1937 by Executive Order No. 7780 as "a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife." The refuge is nearly 35,000 acres (140 km2) in size, including 653 acres (2.64 km2) leased from the Cameron Parish School Board. The Evangeline Parish unit is called Duralde Prairie and is currently being developed. It is located south of the city of Eunice.
Lake Ophelia National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1988 to protect the Mississippi/Red River floodplain ecosystem. The refuge is located in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, east central Louisiana. The refuge is named for its most prominent water body, the 350-acre (1.4 km2) Lake Ophelia that was at one time a channel of the nearby Red River of the South.
Cheyenne Bottoms is a wetland in the central Great Plains of North America. Occupying approximately 41,000 acres in central Kansas, it is the largest wetland in the interior United States. The Bottoms is a critical stopping point on the Central Flyway for millions of birds which migrate through the region annually.
The Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge is located in the Imperial Valley of California, 40 miles (64 km) north of the Mexican border. Situated at the southern end of the Salton Sea, the refuge protects one of the most important nesting sites and stopovers along the Pacific Flyway. Despite its location in the Colorado Desert, a subdivision of the larger Sonoran Desert, the refuge contains marine, freshwater, wetland, and agricultural habitats which provide sanctuary for hundreds of birds and wetland species, including several that have been listed as endangered or sensitive by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Sherburne Complex is a joint land management venture of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that began in 1983. The area consists of 43,637 acres (17,659 ha), and is managed by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. The complex is located in the Morganza Flood way system of the Atchafalaya Basin about 30 miles (48 km) west of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and actually extends a little south of the I-10 Atchafalaya Basin Bridge at Whiskey Bay, Louisiana. The bridge crosses the Whiskey Bay Pilot Channel. Located on the graveled LA 975, the west boundary is on the east side of the Atchafalaya River with the east boundary being the East Protection Levee. The complex stretches just north of old highway 190, and a short distance to the south of I-10. The nearest town is Krotz Springs to the north off US 190.
The fauna of Louisiana is characterized by the region's low swamplands, bayous, creeks, woodlands, coastal marshlands and beaches, and barrier islands covering an estimated 20,000 square miles, corresponding to 40 percent of Louisiana's total land area. Southern Louisiana contains up to fifty percent of the wetlands found in the Continental United States, and are made up of countless bayous and creeks.
The Mississippi Alluvial Plain is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in seven U.S. states, though predominantly in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. It parallels the Mississippi River from the Midwestern United States to the Gulf of Mexico.
Dewey W. Wills Wildlife Management Area, also just called Dewey Wills Wildlife Management Area and formally known as the Saline Wildlife Management area, is a 63,984-acre (25,893 ha) tract of protected area located in LaSalle Parish, Catahoula Parish, and Rapides parish, in Central Louisiana. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) owns 63,901 acres, the LaSalle Parish School Board owns 1530 acres, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USCOE) owns 265 acres, managed by the LDWF.
