Natural History
The refuge contains ocean beach, dunes, upland, fresh and brackish water ponds, salt flats, and salt marsh. There are more than 365 species of birds, 25 species of mammals, 24 species of reptiles, and five species of amphibians. There are concentrations of ducks, geese, swans, wading birds, shore birds, and raptors. There are neotropical migrants that are seasonally abundant on refuge. The refuge has 1,000 acres (4 km²) of manageable waterfowl impoundments, and there are several shorebird nesting areas and wading bird rookeries are located in the refuge. Endangered and threatened species include shortnose sturgeon, american alligator, red wolf, peregrine falcons, loggerhead sea turtles, green sea turtle, leatherback sea turtle, hawksbill sea turtle, Kemp's Ridley sea turtle, red-cockaded woodpecker, roseate tern, West Indian manatee, seabeach amaranth, and piping plovers.
The refuge area was historically used for market waterfowl hunting, commercial fishing, farming, and livestock operations.
Read more about this topic: Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge
Famous quotes containing the words natural history, natural and/or history:
“The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The unreal is natural, so natural that it makes of unreality the most natural of anything natural. That is what America does, and that is what America is.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)