White River National Wildlife Refuge is a vast protected wetland and forest corridor in eastern Arkansas, created in 1935 to preserve one of the lower Mississippi Valley’s remaining floodplain ecosystems. Managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, it extends about 90 miles along the lower White River and forms an important part of Arkansas’s Big Woods, where less than 10 percent remains intact. Internationally recognized as a Wetland of International Importance, it supports the Mississippi Flyway’s largest concentration of wintering mallards, as well as snow geese, Canada geese, nesting bald eagles, and a strongly recovered black bear population. Its forests, lakes, fields, and old-growth natural areas make it a major wildlife sanctuary.