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National Wildlife Refuge System
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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Bill Radke, Refuge Manager
P.O. Box 3509
Douglas, Arizona 85607
Phone: 520/364-2104
Fax: 520/364-2130

Contact San Bernardino NWR

Getting There:  From Douglas, Arizona, take Highway 191 north to mile marker 11. About 1/4 mile past milepost take paved road to the west for 1 mile to Refuge office complex.

Welcome to San Bernardino and Leslie Canyon NWRs

The San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is located on the U.S.-Mexican border in Cochise County, Arizona, 17 miles east of Douglas. Situated at 3,720 to 3,920 feet elevation in the bottom of a wide valley, the Refuge encompasses a portion of the headquarters of the Yaqui River, which drains primarily western Chihuahua and eastern Sonora, Mexico.

The area included in the San Bernardino NWR has a colorful and varied history mostly due to its water resources. During the 1700s, Jesuit priests were in the area for missionary purposes. The 1822 San Bernardino Land Grant (which included the present-day Refuge), resulted in large-scale cattle grazing for 10 years, until the ranchers were driven out by the Apaches. Cattle ranching returned and farming began when John Slaughter purchased the land in 1887 and both practices continued until 1979. between 1914 and 1919, cavalry encampments were present to protect settlers during raids by Pancho Villa. These all left their mark on the landscape of the San Bernardino area.

The 2,309-acre ranch was acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1982 to protect the water resources and provide habitat for endangered native fishes.

The 2770-acre Leslie Canyon area was established in 1988 to protect habitat for the endangered Yaqui chub (Gila purpurea) and Yaqui topminnow (Poeciliopsis occidentalis sonorensis). The Refuge also protects a rare velvet ash-cottonwood-black willow gallery forest. Leslie Canyon NWR is located 16 miles north of Douglas, Arizona, in Cochise County at the southern end of the Swisshelm mountains.

Habitat

Topography of the San Bernardino Refuge varies from flat to rolling in the eastern and western uplands, and drops abruptly to flat bottom lands that bisect the Refuge from north to south.

Dominant plant communities of uplands are Chihuahuan desert scrub and desert grassland, while bottomlands are primarily mesquite bosque and fallow fields. These arid habitats contrast well with artesian wells and seeps that create small areas of riparian forest and woodland, riparian scrub, marshlands, and aquatic habitats.