Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge

-Theodore Roosevelt

Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge was once home to Plains Indians and early European settlers who camped and hunted waterfowl and other game along the shores of Long Lake. The Refuge was established on February 25, 1932 by President Herbert Hoover to provide sanctuary and habitat for migratory birds that use the Central Flyway migration corridor.

Staff at Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge oversee management of two satellite refuges - Slade National Wildlife Refuge and Florence Lake National Wildlife Refuge- as well as a three-county wetland management district. Long Lake NWR is located in south-central North Dakota, near the town of Moffit, in an area famous for its wealth of waterfowl producing prairie potholes. Long Lake is two miles wide, 18 miles long, and has been separated into three units using dikes and spillways to manage water levels and control avian botulism disease outbreaks that have historically occurred. Water levels in the lake are highly variable depending on inflows from Long Lake Creek located south of the Refuge. The result is a highly dynamic system. During wet periods, the lake has depths of four to six feet for successive years providing for an excellent fishery.

As water levels recede, exposed mud flats provide a mecca for waterfowl, shorebirds, and other rare water birds including the endangered whooping crane. Beyond the lake, smaller scattered seasonal wetlands and pools are interspersed in mixed grass prairie, ravines, tree and shrub plantings, and cultivated fields.

Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge was listed as a top 10 birding site by Wild Bird Magazine. The Refuge was also  designated as both a Globally Important Bird Area (https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas) and a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site (https://whsrn.org/whsrn-sites/map-of-sites/) because of its importance as both a breeding and migratory stopover site for more than 20,000 shorebirds, annually.