Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge is a 74,000-acre (299 km2) National Wildlife Refuge in Utah, established in 1927. Leased by the government from private property owners.
The refuge encompasses the Bear River and its delta where it flows into the northern part of the Great Salt Lake in eastern Box Elder County. It includes a variety of habitats, such as open water, mudflats, wetlands, and uplands. The refuge hosts millions of migratory birds each year including species such as bald eagle and tundra swan. There are more than 41,000 acres (170 km2) of freshwater wetlands. Though disputed by the Federal and State governments the rights to the land, it was leased from the Knudson Trust, and was eventually purchased for an undisclosed sum. The surrounding lands are occupied by multiple hunting clubs along the migration route, also owned by the Knudson Trust, and much of the income from Ducks Unlimited, Canadian Goose Club and various other groups benefit the restoration of the vast marshland. Starting in 1983, rising floodwaters from the Great Salt Lake severely impacted the refuge. The flooding of the refuge is at the center of Terry Tempest Williams's noted nonfiction book, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. In 2006, a new wildlife education center off Interstate 15 opened to attract visitors once more.
Famous quotes containing the words bear, river, bird and/or refuge:
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.””
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)