Management and Conservation
Lakes, sloughs, and creeks comprise over 40 percent of the refuge. Only 151 acres consist of openings or clearings, such as farm fields or most-soil units. The remainder, or 2,265 acres, is composed of typical bottomland hardwoods associated with the Tombigbee River Basin. Overall, refuge management includes moist-soil units, farming operations, forest improvements, and wetland manipulations and protection. While various objectives fall within the mission of Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge, the overriding thrust is to provide and maintain optimum habitat for wood duck production, along with wintering areas for migratory waterfowl.
Our Projects and Research
The National Science Foundation's National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale observation facility operated by Battelle and designed to collect long-term open access ecological data to better understand how U.S. ecosystems are changing. The comprehensive data, spatial extent and remote sensing technology provided by NEON will enable a large and diverse user community to tackle new questions at scales not accessible to previous generations of ecologists.
NEON collects environmental data and archival samples that characterize plant, animals, soil, nutrients, freshwater and atmosphere from 81 field sites including Choctaw NWR, these sites are strategically located in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems across the U.S.
Field site name: Lower Tombigbee River at Choctaw Refuge – TOMB https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/field-sites-map/list
Law Enforcement
Protecting resources and people on our refuges is the fundamental responsibility of refuge officers. The mission of the Refuge Law Enforcement Program is to support the administration of the National Wildlife Refuge System through the management and protection of natural, historic and cultural resources, property, and people on lands and waters of our national wildlife refuges.