211 separate species of birds have been logged at Seney, including ducks, bald eagles, trumpeter swans, osprey, sandhill cranes, and common loons.

On the western side of the National Wildlife Refuge, a parcel is officially designated as a wilderness with an area of 25,150 acres (102 km2).

The friable sand, exposed to the weather, was sculpted by wind and water into parallel strips of dune highland and wetland.

The Seney National Wildlife Refuge is built upon the remains of the Great Manistique Swamp, a perched sand wetland located in the central Upper Peninsula.

Widespread, year-round hunting (legal and illegal) had reduced the North American population of free-flying Canada geese to a trickle of birds who avoided human beings as much as possible.

Every year a shrinking crop of Canada goslings was hatched and flew south for the winter, but few or none returned in the following spring to Seney.

The Seney Canada goose breeding population had multiplied to 3,000 birds by 1956, and continued to expand thereafter even after local hunting was re-legalized.