Credit: Richard J. Edwards        Photo of a plant

Erie refuge was established in 1959. The land was purchased with funds provided from the sale of the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps (also known as Duck stamps). A management objective is to provide waterfowl and other migratory birds with nesting, feeding, brooding, and resting habitat. Additional objectives include providing habitat to support a diversity of other wildlife species and enhancing opportunities for wildlife-oriented public recreation and environmental education. Over 2,500 acres of wetlands, including beaver floodings, marshes, swamps, man-made impoundments (shallow ponds), creeks and wet meadows, provide desirable migratory bird habitat.

Refuge staff use a variety of tools to accomplish this management, including:

• Manipulation of water levels in impoundments to encourage the growth of wetland plants as food, cover, and shelter.
• Prescribed burning to remove all vegetation from an area in a very controlled fire to promote new growth of plants.
• Mowing fields to keep those areas in a grassy state.
• Periodically cutting large trees to maintain dry areas as shrubland for certain wildlife species.
• Removing plants that are invasive and can change the natural processes of an ecosystem.
• Restoring degraded habitat by planting new trees, shrubs, or grasses, or allowing native plants to regenerate.
• Using only native plants (plants that thrived in this area before Europeans arrived).
• Monitoring and surveying wildlife populations.
• Maintaining processes of naturally occurring habitats (streams, shrub swamps, marshes ).