DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1958, is located along the banks of the Missouri River in the U.S. states of Iowa and Nebraska.

As a result, part of the Nebraska portion of the refuge lies on the east side of the Missouri River.

[1] Today, the refuge is home to around 30 mammal species, including white-tailed deer, beavers, opossums, raccoons, fox squirrels, muskrats and coyotes.

Many bird species also inhabit the refuge, such as bald eagles, great blue herons, egrets, pelicans, turkeys and cardinals.

DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge is located five miles (eight kilometres) east of Blair, Nebraska.

The refuge on June 20, 2011, during the 2011 Missouri River flood . The oxbow lake is in the upper left. Five days later, a levee breach resulted in the refuge closing after being nearly totally inundated. The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station is in the foreground.
DeSoto Lake was once part of the Missouri River, but rechannelization projects cut a large bend out of the river, forming the lake at Desoto NWR
Red-headed woodpecker at DeSoto NWR.
DeSoto NWR center, housing the Bertrand exhibit.