Family-Outdoors

Less than an hour’s drive through the scenic Mississippi River towns north of St. Louis Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge  (NWR), home to one of the largest concentrations of wintering bald eagles in the U.S., and thousands of birds as they rest and refuel during spring and fall migrations. Many refuge visitors come from the St. Louis metro area to hike, bird-watch and simply connect with their natural world. Like Two Rivers NWR, many national wildlife refuges are within just an hour’s drive of one or more major metropolitan areas. In the Midwest,  Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge  offers citizens of the Detroit area birding and wildlife-viewing opportunities, while  Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge offers outdoor education opportunities for inner city school groups from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. Kids playing outdoors near St. Louis, Missouri. Photo by Ashley Spratt/USFWS. sits “More than three-quarters of people in the Midwestern ...

Midwest natural resource leaders came together in St. Louis, Mo., last week to strategize collaborative conservation efforts to benefit both wildlife habitat and water quality across the Mississippi River basin. As part of the  Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative  (LCC), federal, state, non-governmental and tribal partners have been working side-by-side to reduce nutrient runoff from agricultural communities while improving habitat for fish, wildlife and native prairie systems. The 800-million acre Mississippi River basin provides vital habitat for fish and wildlife, and also supports more than 400,000 farms and large urban populations from Chicago to Des Moines. High nutrient runoff from agricultural communities in the Mississippi River basin contributes to to hypoxic (or oxygen-less) waters that pour into the Gulf of Mexico, and, thus declines in commercial and recreation fisheries in the Gulf region. U.S. Fish and Wildlife ...