Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia

Piedmont NWR, Round Oak, Georgia: It has been said of Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge that, "If a wildlife refuge can be made here, it can be made anywhere." In the early 1800s, European settlers cleared the vast forest and planted cotton, which soon robbed the soil of its natural fertility. The loss of trees with their stabilizing root system led to massive erosion. The Civil War, the boll weevil, and the Great Depression added to the problems in this area and it was abandoned—left barren, infertile, and utterly depleted. In 1939, the Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the land and established the refuge. Today it is once again a thriving forest with several productive ecosystems: wetland, bottomland hardwood, old-growth pine, to name a few. Wildlife are present in greater numbers than when the first settlers arrived. A particular success story is the presence of several colonies of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers, which nest in old-growth pines such as these.