U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge

Refuge Facts Refuge Objectives ■ Established: 1964. ■ Provide forested habitat for migratory waterfowl and other birds. ■ Acres: 11,556. ■ Provide nesting habitat for wood ■ Located entirely within Haywood ducks and hooded merganzers. County, TN. ■ Provide recreation and ■ Other management: Conservation environmental education for the Easement: one in Hardeman public. County, TN totaling 359.93 acres in two tracts. ■ Maintain represenative flora and photo: USFWS photo: fauna characteristic of bottomland ■ Location: one mile south of hardwood forests of Western Brownsville, TN on the south Tennessee. bank of 23.5 miles of the state— designated Hatchie Scenic River. Management Tools Bisected by I-40 and TN Highway ■ Water management for migratory 76 about 50 miles east of Memphis waterfowl, wading birds, and 130 miles west of Nashville, TN. shorebirds and other birds. ■ Permanent staff: five. ■ Cooperative farming. photo: USFWS photo: Natural History ■ Prescribed fire. ■ About 90 percent of the Refuge lies within the floodplain of the Hatchie ■ Mechanical / chemical control of River. The Hatchie is the last noxious plants. unchannelized river of its type in the ■ Deer management with public Lower Mississippi River Valley and hunting. still functions under near normal wetland cycles. About 9,400 acres of ■ Education / interpretation. bottomland hardwoods are located ■ Law enforcement. on the refuge and are flooded by headwater flows of the Hatchie. ■ Partnerships. photo: USFWS photo: ■ The headwaters of the Hatchie in Public Use Opportunities Mississippi are channelized as are ■ Wildlife observation. 33 major tributaries. ■ Hunting, including youth hunts. ■ Alterations are causing drastic ■ Fishing, including a prototype changes in flooding patterns accessible fishing project. and deposition of inordinate amounts of silt and sand in refuge ■ Photography. timberlands. Wind deposited soils on the surrounding highlands with ■ Boating access to the Hatchie River. intensive farming practices (cotton) ■ Auto tour route. photo: USFWS photo: combine causing erosion rates to Refuge Manager soar to as high as 120 tons/acre/ Calendar of Events Hatchie NWR year. Current timber losses amount April: spring turkey hunting. 6772 Highway 76 South to about 100 acres per year. September-October: Stanton, TN 38069 ■ archery deer hunting. Phone: 731/772 0501 Concentrations of ducks (primarily mallards), shorebirds, wading birds Fax: 731/772 7839 September-February: and neotropical songbirds. E-mail: [email protected] small game hunting. ■ Open water 270 acres, wetland September and December-January: 10,000 acres, woodlands 9,800 waterfowl hunting. acres, cropland 1,000 acres, and grasslands 31 acres. October and November: quota deer gun hunting.