State Parks and National Parks

Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge

Columbia, MO U.S.A.

4200 New Haven Road
Columbia, MO 65201
U.S.A.

573-876-1826
800-877-8339 TTY
573-876-1839 Fax

Open Year-Round

No Entry Fee Charged

State Park Information

The Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, established in 1994, has grown to 11,000 acres. Its acreage is spread out in individual units along the Missouri River between Kansas City and St. Louis.

These parcels of habitat benefit floodplain-dependent fish and wildlife species. The Big Muddy refuge plans to grow to 60,000 acres to benefit this wildlife.

The pre-development Missouri River, documented by Lewis and Clark, was considerably different than today’s river.

The untouched Missouri was a broad, slow moving shallow river with braided channels. Lewis and Clark didn't float up the Missouri River, they pulled and poled their boats up.

These past river conditions created a haven for wildlife, which included vast floodplain forests of giant trees, marshes and even wet prairies.

Today, the river is channelized. It is deeper and faster, and controlled by levees, dikes and other containment structures. These controls make the river more navigable and the surrounding floodplain ideal for agriculture.

The Big Muddy refuge is allowing the Missouri to be a river again. In locations where enough land has been acquired, it is allowed to enter its floodplain. This occurs during minor flood events. The refuge staff have created side channels, cut down levees and allowed the floodplain vegetation to return.

Currently in many places the refuge is an impenetrable thicket of young trees and vegetation but as the trees grow and the refuge matures its appearance will change. The process may take decades or even centuries but refuge is committed to the future benefit of fish and wildlife resources in the Missouri River floodplain.

The Missouri river provides some of the most outstanding catfishing in the country.

The entire refuge is open to hunting.

The refuge has great wildlife observation and photography areas along refuge roads and trails, but no site-specific viewing areas have been developed on the refuge yet.

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