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St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge Essay

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St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge Essay
Over spring break, I explored the Gulf Coast area with some friends. We camped at Ochlockonee River State Park in Sopchoppy, FL. During these days we also visited different locations of the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. We discovered an area with a beach and a boat ramp near Panacea, FL. The next day we went to St. Marks Lighthouse. Along the drive down to the lighthouse, we discovered different types of lands and ecosystems.
St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1931 in order to provide a habitat for migrating birds. It is over 70,000 acres that’s spread between Wakulla, Jefferson, and Taylor counties. The refuge is extremely diverse and include slash pine flatwoods, man-made pools, swamps, saltwater marshes, sandhills, longleaf/wiregrass habitats, flatwoods, beaches, creeks, tidal creeks, rivers, which results in a diverse community of plants and animals. These areas are home to 700 species of birds, 220 species of mammals, 250 reptiles, and more than 200 species of fish. Since the areas have such diverse habitats along Florida’s Gulf Coast it provides many homes for wildlife. The St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge pamphlet explains that natural salt marshes, tidal flats, and man-made pools attract thousands of waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, and other
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Marks National Wildlife Refuge is a unit of the National Wildlife System.The National Wildlife System is an extensive network of areas such as land and water that have been protected. There are over 17,000 acres that are protected under the Federal Wilderness Act. The Longleaf Pine Land management and Demonstration Area helps to restore habitats and more. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services want to conserve threatened and endangered animals. In 2009, the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge joined the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership to aid the migration of endangered whooping cranes. The area is governed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the U.S. Federal

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