National Wildlife Refuges

Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge
402-468-4313

Desoto National Wildlife Refuge
712-642-4121

Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge
563-873-3423

Iowa Wetland Management District
515-928-2523

McGregor District, Upper Miss National Wildlife and Fish Refuge
563-873-3423

Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge
515-994-3400

Port Louisa National Wildlife Refuge
319-523-6982

Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge
515-928-2523

Other Information

Travel Information
Midwest Natural Resources Group (MNRG)

State Facts

• The Service employs more than 67 people in Iowa

• The Fiscal Year 2006 Resource Management budget for Service activities in Iowa totaled $4.4 million

• Seven National Wildlife Refuges and one Wetland Management District in Iowa total 108,000 acres

• In 2004, more than 612,000 people visited national wildlife refuges in Iowa to hunt, fish, participate in interpretive programs and view wildlife

• Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge, one of the first Missouri River restoration refuges after the 1993 historic floods, focuses on tallgrass prairie restoration and Missouri River floodplain wetlands restoration.
  
  

In 2006 Iowa received:

• $7 million for sport fish restoration

• $4 million for wildlife restoration and hunter education

Law Enforcement

Des Moines Law Enforcement Office
515-284-4125

Ecological Services

Rock Island Field Office
(located in IL but serves IA issues)
309-793-5800

Other Programs

Federal Aid
Iowa River Corridor
Large Rivers Fisheries Coordination Office
Migratory Bird Conservation
North American Waterfowl Management Plan
Private Lands Office
Realty

DeSoto’s Sunken Treasure

Located in Missouri Valley, Iowa, DeSoto NWR is home to a premier archaeological collection of 200,000 artifacts excavated from the buried hull of the steamboat Bertrand, which sank on the Missouri River in 1865. The wreck was discovered on the refuge in 1968. Visitors can view hundreds of artifacts recovered from the wreck at the refuge visitor center.

Great Rivers, Restored Prairie Mark Iowa Refuges

Two hundred years ago a vast prairie ecosystem stretched unbroken throughout the Midwestern United States and into Canada. The tallgrass prairie ecosystem encompassed parts of 14 states including nearly all of Iowa.

Deep organic soils formed by the cyclic degradation of prairie roots left a rich legacy to modern agriculture: the most fertile soil in the world. As a result, 99 percent of the original prairie landscape in Iowa succumbed to the plow and other forms of development in a matter of a few decades.

Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, located just west of Des Moines, is working to re-create more than 8,000 acres of Iowa’s native tallgrass prairie and oak savanna. Similar prairie restoration efforts are being mounted at the 3, 300-acre Union Slough NWR near Algona, in northern Iowa.

The Service also manages McGregor District of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, Driftless NWR and Port Louisa NWR on the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa, and DeSoto NWR along the Missouri River in northwest Iowa.

Located along the Mississippi River Flyway, the Port Louisa and the McGregor District refuges were established to protect migratory birds. Key goals of these refuges are to conserve and enhance the quality and diversity of fish and wildlife an their habitats; and to restore floodplain functions in the river corridor.