Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge

Description

Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge is a 23000acre region of fresh and brackish marshes located within the city limits of New Orleans. It is the largest urban wildlife refuge in the United States.LocationBayou Sauvage is in the eastern portion of Eastern New Orleans. Most of the refuge is inside massive hurricane protection levees, built to hold back storm surges and maintain water levels in the low-lying city. This is because the present-day refuge was for decades slated as the site for an enormous, master-planned community named, in various iterations, "Pontchartrain", "Orlandia" and "New Orleans East". Three interchanges with I-10 were constructed to accommodate the development; two of the three were never used and appear as "ghost exits" to contemporary motorists.WildlifeAn enormous wading bird rookery can be found in the swamps of the refuge from May until July, while tens of thousands of waterfowl winter in its marshes.The brown pelican is an endangered species and is a year-round resident of southeast Louisiana. The number of nesting brown pelicans has substantially increased despite loss of nesting habitat. Brown pelicans are frequent users of the refuge. Several bald eagles, another threatened species, visit the refuge each year.Other wildlife include waterfowl, wading birds, shorebirds, marsh rabbits, white pelicans, alligators, and other raptors, game and small mammals, reptiles and amphibians