This week is National Wildlife Refuge Week, celebrating America’s wildlife refuge system. Our wildlife refuges provide critical habitat for our native wildlife, helping recover threatened and endangered species where they can thrive. During #RefugeWeek we celebrate the National Wildlife Refuge System and all its values! Here are a few facts that you may or may not have known about our wildlife refuges:
- The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world’s largest protected lands and waters dedicated to wildlife conservation, encompassing more than 850 million acres.
- The National Wildlife Refuge System is one of the most biologically rich systems of the preserves on the world, encompassing ecosystems like tropical and boreal forests, wetlands, deserts, grasslands, arctic tundras, and remote islands.
- The National Wildlife Refuge System provides Americans access to some of the nation’s best outdoor recreation, including wildlife viewing, photography, hunting, and fishing
- National wildlife refuges protect crucial stopover and nesting habitat for millions of migratory birds each year, creating and aerial highway along migration routes.
We have several wildlife refuges here in South Carolina for you to enjoy. Find one near you here!