Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge

Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge is a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's premiere system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants...

on Oregon's coast

Oregon Coast

The Oregon Coast is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It runs generally north-south along the Pacific Ocean, forming the western border of the state; the region is bounded to the east by the Oregon Coast Range. The Oregon Coast stretches approximately from the Columbia River in the north to...

. It is one of six National Wildlife Refuges comprising the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex

Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex

The Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex consists of six National Wildlife Refuges along the Oregon Coast. It provides wilderness protection to thousands of small islands, rocks, reefs, headlands, marshes, and bays totaling 371 acres spanning 320 miles of Oregon's coastline...

and is renowned among bird watchers for being able to view rare shorebirds including Ruff, Hudsonian Godwit

Hudsonian Godwit

The Hudsonian Godwit, Limosa haemastica, is a large shorebird.-Identification:Adults have long dark legs and a long pink bill with a slight upward curve and dark at the tip. The upper parts are mottled brown and the underparts are chestnut. The tail is black and the rump is white...

, and Mongolian Plover.
The refuge was last expanded in 1999, it now has 889 acres (3.6 km²) in two units: Bandon Marsh and Ni-les'tun.

Recreation

Bandon Marsh is popular for hunting

Hunting

Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

, fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

, clamming, birding and photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

. The wildlife

Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....

refuge protects the largest tidal salt marsh

Salt marsh

A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...

in the Coquille River

Coquille River

The Coquille River is a stream long, in southwestern Oregon in the United States. It drains a mountainous area of of the Southern Oregon Coast Range into the Pacific Ocean. Its watershed is located between that of the Coos River to the north and the Rogue River to the south.-Geography:The river,...

estuary. The mudflats are rich in clam

Clam

The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...

, crab

Crab

True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...

, worm

Worm

The term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...

, and shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

and attracts migrating shorebirds, waterfowl

Waterfowl

Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....

, Coho Salmon

Coho salmon

The Coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". It is the state animal of Chiba, Japan.-Description:...

, as well as the endangered California Brown Pelican.
More common shorebird species include Western and Least Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover

Semipalmated Plover

The Semipalmated Plover is a small plover.This species weighs and measures in length and across the wings. Adults have a grey-brown back and wings, a white belly, and a white breast with one black neckband...

, Black-bellied Plover, Pacific Golden Plover

Pacific Golden Plover

The Pacific Golden Plover is a medium-sized plover.The 23–26 cm long breeding adult is spotted gold and black on the crown, back and wings. Its face and neck are black with a white border and it has a black breast and a dark rump. The legs are black...

, Red Phalarope

Red Phalarope

The Red Phalarope , Phalaropus fulicarius, is a small wader. This phalarope breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia...

, Whimbrel

Whimbrel

The Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus, is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae. It is one of the mostwidespread of the curlews, breeding across much of subarctic North America, Europe and Asia as far south as Scotland....

, Dunlin

Dunlin

The Dunlin, Calidris alpina, is a small wader, sometimes separated with the other "stints" in Erolia. It is a circumpolar breeder in Arctic or subarctic regions. Birds that breed in northern Europe and Asia are long-distance migrants, wintering south to Africa, southeast Asia and the Middle East...

The Ni-Les'tun Unit

The Ni-les'tun unit is a habitat restoration project which will eventually benefit fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

and wildlife. In consists of intertidal and freshwater marsh

Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

, and riparian land. It also protects a 4,500 year-old Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

site of the Coquille Indian Tribe

Coquille Indian Tribe

The Coquille Indian Tribe is the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs-recognized Native American tribal entity of the Coquille people, who have traditionally lived on the southern Oregon Coast.-Treaty with the United States:...

. The Refuge is planning a marsh restoration for this unit where an influx of saltwater and freshwater will allow a revival of mudflats and marsh plants, and interconnecting tidal channels will bisect the wildlife habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

south of the overlook deck. As the land returns to a functioning intertidal marsh, flocks of seasonally driven migratory birds and young fish will use the restored habitat.

There are several overlooks, as well as access for hunters, birders, fisherman, and clammers. State and federal regulations are in effect. The Marsh is located just north of Bandon

Bandon, Oregon

- Economy :Like many communities on the Oregon coast, Bandon had significant fishing and timber industries, which were greatly diminished by the 1980s, though some remnants still exist. Bandon's current economy revolves around wood products, fishing, tourism, and agriculture...

, on the east side of the Coquille river across from Bullards Beach State Park

Bullards Beach State Park

Bullards Beach State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Oregon, administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department....

Recreation

The Ni-Les'tun Unit

See also