The Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge is a 11,012 acres (4,456 ha) National Wildlife Refuge in central Minnesota. There are eight refuge units strung along 34 miles (55 km) of the Minnesota River. Located just south of the city of Minneapolis, this is one of only four American national wildlife refuges in an urban area, and the largest. The visitor center is located just blocks from the Mall of America. The parklands stretch southwest through Minneapolis’ outer-ring suburbs to Jordan, Minnesota. The various refuge units are interspersed with units of the Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area. Although the national wildlife refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the state recreation area by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, both agencies share a consistent signage to simplify visitation.
Read more about Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge: History
Famous quotes containing the words valley, national, wildlife and/or refuge:
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)