Delta National Forest

The only bottomland hardwood national forest in the United States, Delta National Forest occupies approximately 61,000 acres of the flat alluvial floodplain of the Mississippi Delta in west-central Mississippi. Ancient bald cypress, water tupelo, overcup oak, and sweetgum dominate this low-lying landscape, which floods seasonally when the Sunflower River and its tributaries spill over their banks, creating a vast mosaic of wetland habitats of immense ecological value. This seasonal flooding cycle supports exceptional waterfowl hunting, with thousands of mallards, wood ducks, and other species using the flooded timber during winter migrations along the Mississippi Flyway.\n\nThe forest provides important habitat for black bears, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and numerous species of wading birds, songbirds, and amphibians adapted to the wet bottomland environment. Fishing in the forest's sloughs, oxbow lakes, and bayous yields good catches of bass, crappie, catfish, and bream. As one of the last significant remnants of the Mississippi Delta's once-vast bottomland hardwood forest -- more than 80 percent of which has been cleared for agriculture -- Delta National Forest serves an increasingly important role in floodwater retention, water quality protection, and biodiversity conservation for the region.