It’s great!
It’s dismal…
It’s a swamp!
And it’s been a national wildlife refuge for 50 years. ๐
In honor of Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge’s 50th anniversary, here are some of our favorite things about it:
๐ฆ Super neat species live there, like Atlantic white cedar, spotted turtles and red-cockaded woodpeckers!
๐ It has a stellar name.
โ๐ฟ The swamp played an important role in the Underground Railroad and was a safe haven for maroon communities to live for generations.
๐ง It’s swampy! And even though humans drained it (๐คฆโโ๏ธ), the water is rising again now that we’ve plugged the holes.
๐ Peat! Peat soils keep thousands of years of carbon out of the atmosphere and are also squishy. ๐ค
Cypress Trees at Great Dismal Swamp Refuge, R. Winn/USFWS