Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge

An old-growth forest flourishes with large trees, rich bottomland hardwood forests, and more than 400 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Once endangered and nearly extinct animals such as the Louisiana black bear and ivory-billed woodpecker peacefully exist in this wildlife refuge.

Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge was established in northeastern Louisiana in 1980 to preserve one of the largest privately owned tracts of bottomland hardwoods remaining in the Mississippi Delta. Since the early 1900s, this land had been in private hands and had lost precious flora and fauna.

One previous owner, Singer Sewing Machine Company, utilized the large trees to make sewing machine cabinets. Later, the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company harvested timber from the forest. Tens of thousands of acres of forest in Louisiana’s Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the nation’s largest floodplain, were clear-cut and converted to cotton and other crops.

In 2003 Trust for Public Land began to purchase and restore 11,000 acres of the property as an addition that connects two units of the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge into one contiguous conservation area.

We have reforested more than 8,000 acres by planting 3.6 million native trees. When fully grown, these trees will sequester more than 2.5 million tons of carbon.

The added and reforested land includes almost 9 miles of Tensas River frontage and will help filter drinking water, provide habitat for native wildlife and migratory birds, and create a wildlife corridor and habitat for the endangered Louisiana black bear.

Community programs offered at Tensas River NWR include cooperative farming, black bear research, neotropical migrant bird research, environmental education, and more.