Refuge Headquarters in Columbia, NC and view of Scuppernong River

Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge is one of over 550 National Wildlife Refuges, which together cover over 150 million acres in the United States, creating the world’s largest system of nature preserves. Teeming with wildlife, this refuge, located in eastern North Carolina on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, provides winter sanctuary for tens of thousands of tundra swans, snow geese, a variety of duck species and other birds. It is also home to two endangered species, the red wolf and the red-cockaded woodpecker, and one of the largest populations of American black bears in North America.

The Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula is the major winter home on the east coast for the Atlantic Flyway population of tundra swans, which migrate from northern Alaska and Canada, and is the only mainland site in the world for the wild red wolf population. The red wolf, declared extinct in the wild in 1980, was reintroduced into the wild in 1987 on this peninsula.

Pocosin Lakes NWR was established in 1990 when the Conservation Fund in conjunction with the Richard Mellon Foundation donated over 93,000 acres to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The adjacent 12,000 acre Pungo National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1963 to serve as a sanctuary for migratory waterfowl, was combined with these new refuge lands and became the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes NWR. Today the refuge encompasses more than 110,000 acres.

Pocosin Lakes NWR owns or has lands surrounding or adjacent to six major water bodies: the Scuppernong River, Pungo Lake, New Lake, Alligator River, the northwest and southwest forks of Alligator River, and Lake Phelps. These water bodies interspersed in the vast pocosin landscape led to the refuge’s name – Pocosin Lakes.

 Links:

Pocosin Lakes NWR

PO Box 329 (mailing)

205 South Ludington Dr

Columbia, NC 27925

252-796-3004                                                                                                                                                                                 http://www.fws.gov/pocosinlakes/ 

Pocosin Lakes NWR - General Brochure                                                                               http://www.fws.gov/southeast/pubs/PocosinLakes_gen.pdf

Pocosin Lakes NWR Comprehensive Conservation Plan – November 2007                                    http://library.fws.gov/CCPs/pocosinlakes_final.pdf

National Wildlife Refuge System                                                                                                                                           The mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System is to administer a national network of lands and waters for the conservation, management and where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife and plant resources and their habitats within the United States for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.                                    http://www.fws.gov/refuges/  

National Wildlife Refuge Association                                                                                                                                     The National Wildlife Refuge Association’s mission: - To protect, enhance, and expand the National Wildlife Refuge System, lands set aside by the American people to protect our country's diverse wildlife heritage.                     http://www.refugenet.org/

Sunset view over Scuppernong River from the Refuge Headquarters