Wildlife Management

Credit: Tony Cullen/USFWS Beaver

The mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System is to conserve, manage, and restore fish, wildlife, and plant resources (and their habitats).  The System is also tasked with maintaining biological integrity and diversity, which sometimes means that active management is needed to sustain habitats, populations or processes that were in place prior to European settlement. 

Most often, wildlife management at Great Swamp is achieved by managing the habitats that provide wildlife with food and shelter.  Fields are mowed to maintain early successional habitat for woodcock, small mammals, and raptors that hunt the fields.  Invasive plant species are treated and removed to restore plant and structural diversity required by wildlife.  Water levels are managed to provide optimal water depths for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl, and nest boxes erected for bluebirds and wood ducks provide habitat for these cavity-nesting birds to rear their young.

Sometimes, however, animal populations are managed directly, and this often benefits the habitat and therefore other animals.  Deer are removed (through a recreational hunt) to reduce the browse pressure that limits the regeneration of trees and shrubs.  Beaver are relocated to prevent flooding and damage to Refuge roads and culverts.  (However, since beaver activity can also create habitat for amphibians and waterfowl, they are only moved if their activity threatens to flood neighbors or damage Refuge structures).  On some refuges, predator control reduces pressure on sensitive ground-nesting birds; or goose control allows marsh vegetation to rebound and provide food and habitat for other waterfowl.

At Great Swamp, wildlife management differs between the Wildlife Management Area and the Wilderness Area.  The western half of the Refuge is intensively managed to maintain optimum habitat for a variety of wildlife.  Public access in this area is limited to the Wildlife Observation Center and Pleasant Plains Road to minimize disturbance to wildlife.

The Wilderness Area serves as an outdoor laboratory and provides a more primitive outdoor experience for the general public.  Hiking on almost eight miles of trails is permitted, but no permanent structures, motorized vehicles, or equipment are allowed.  Limiting use in this sensitive area to foot travel preserves the wilderness experience for our visitors, and means that habitats and water levels here are left to natural processes. 

The Refuge has identified more than 222 species of birds according to their seasonal 
occurrence.  Mammals found on the Refuge include the white-tailed deer, river otter, 
muskrat, mink, beaver, raccoon, skunk, red fox, coyote, woodchuck, gray squirrel, opossum,  cottontail rabbit and the federally endangered Indiana bat.  An variety of fish, reptiles, and amphibians, including the federally threatened bog turtle and the state endangered  blue-spotted salamander, are also found on the Refuge.  Click below for more complete lists of the animals that occur on the Refuge.