Best Gulf Coast
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Established on the Texas Gulf Coast in 1937, it is the primary wintering ground for the endangered whooping crane, whose wild population recovered from fewer than 20 individuals in the mid-20th century.
Established in 1931 along Florida's Gulf Coast, it is one of the oldest national wildlife refuges in the southeastern United States and a nationally significant stopover for migratory monarch butterflies and shorebirds.
Delta National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1935 near the mouth of the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana. It protects deltaic marshes, waterways, mudflats, and associated coastal habitats continually shaped by river sediment, storms, subsidence, and saltwater influence. These product...
Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1946 in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas. It protects coastal prairie, thorn scrub, wetlands, and tidal-flat habitats used by migratory birds and wildlife adapted to the region's subtropical climate. The refuge is particularly...
A largely undeveloped refuge along Florida's Gulf Coast, it protects estuarine wetlands and spring-fed rivers that serve as critical habitat for the threatened West Indian manatee and numerous coastal bird species.
Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area of coastal prairie in southeastern Texas administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was established to conserve habitat for the critically endangered Attwater's prairie-chicken, a subspecies once widespread along the T...
San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge is a federally protected area on the Texas Gulf Coast, established in 1968. It preserves a mixture of coastal marsh, freshwater wetlands, ponds, prairies, and wooded habitat used by resident wildlife and birds migrating along the Central Flyway. The refuge is par...
The Buff-bellied Hummingbird (Amazilia yucatanensis) is the only hummingbird that regularly breeds in Texas, primarily along the Gulf Coast and Rio Grande Valley.
The Mottled Duck is a non-migratory dabbling duck of the southeastern United States and Mexico, notable for its dark plumage and vulnerability to coastal habitat loss.
A shallow estuarine bay straddling the Alabama-Florida state border, fed by the Perdido River and notable for diverse fisheries and as a nursery habitat for marine species.
