Bitterlake National Wildlife Refuge
Southwest Region
"Conserving the Nature of America"
 
  Prairie grassland & red bluffs
Photo by John Magera

Habitat

With its gypsum karst topography and unusually diverse wetlands a variety of plant and animal communties thrive on the refuge. Native grasslands, vegetated sand dunes, brushy bottomlands, and red-rimmed plateaus provide a sharp contrast to the marshlands of the refuge.

Snowy egret in marsh  
Photo by Dave Goudy

Straddling the Pecos River the Refuge consists of an assortment of water habitats. Numerous seeps and free-flowing springs, oxbow lakes, marshes and shallow water impoundments, water-filled sinkholes, and the refuge namesake, Bitter lake, make up these unique environments.

 

 

 

 

 
Photo by John Magera

Scattered across the land are over 70 natural sinkholes of different shapes and sizes. Created by groundwater erosion these water habitats form isolated communties of fish, invertebrate, amphibians and other wildlife.

Fish Abundance in Desert Sinkholes

 

 

blue goose refuge logo with links to brochure, species lists, refuge maps, plans
Last updated: October 29, 2009
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