Bitter Lake

A designated wilderness area refers to qualities that characterize an area that is untrammeled, natural, undeveloped, and provides solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. Untrammeled, natural, and undeveloped qualities mean places that do not have human interference within the wilderness area. Human interferences include structures, buildings, developments, vehicles, or roads. Undeniably, the cherished quality that makes a wilderness area unique is the solitude and the vastness of nature that makes it primitive. Collectively, these qualities and their attributes determine the overall character of the wilderness area, helping to justify their distinction. Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge monitors the Salt Creek Wilderness Area, 9,621 acres within an overall 12,269 acres on the North Tract.  

Managing water levels is an important management tool utilized at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Wetlands function naturally as a cycle: wet in the fall, winter, and spring, and dry in the summer; and the cycle repeats. Wetlands and moist soil units are shallowly flooded in the fall and winter to provide migratory ducks, sandhill cranes, snow geese, and shorebirds with roosting and feeding areas. In the spring, water is slowly drawn down through draining back to the Pecos River, or percolating back in the ground to the groundwater, or through summer evaporation to expose mudflats. The salt flats, a dry white crusty layer left behind from the gypsum deposits from the aquifer, exposed during spring and summer provide an important nesting and feeding areas for snowy plovers, avocets, and least terns. This drawdown process also allows for wetland plants, such as pickleweed, alkali saltgrass, and the threatened Pecos sunflower, to grow and provide food for the upcoming fall migration. Wetlands are occasionally flooded through the groundwater for short periods in the summer to irrigate vegetation and provide a supply of food available for migratory birds as they arrive in the fall. Add water in the fall and watch the marvel of migration that captivates us all. Through flooding the wetland units the refuge provides 817,648 duck-use days (from October through March), 641,599 crane-use days (from September through April), and 1.2 million goose-use days. 

Effective fire management is not only important for the protection of human life and property, but it is also an essential tool for habitat management and restoration. Prescribed fire is used in the control of exotic and invasive plant species on the refuge. Controlled burns help reduce the thick dead vegetation, rejuvenate the native vegetation such as the Pecos sunflower and alkali saltgrass, and eliminate or set back invasive plants. Prescribed burns are safely performed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fire personnel.  

Native trees such as cottonwoods, willows, and New Mexican olive are scarce in the Chihuahuan desert landscape except near water. Saltcedar, once used to stop erosion, historically invaded many areas on the refuge. Refuge staff use mechanical and chemical methods to remove this invasive shrub and Ravenna grass and plant native cottonwoods, willows, and New Mexican olive in key areas, which provide great roosting areas for many neotropical songbirds like the vermillion flycatcher or the painted bunting. The native trees also provide cover for the migratory monarch butterfly as it migrates to and from Mexico.