Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge

Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge

Parks Directory of the United States / National Wildlife Refuges

Address: c/o Wheeler NWR
2700 Refuge Headquarters Rd
Decatur, AL 35603
Phone: 256-353-7243;
Fax: 256-340-9728;
Web: www.fws.gov/ferncave
Established: 1981.
Location: 20 miles west of Scottsboro, Alabama.
Facilities: Viewing sites, hiking trails.
Activities: Wildlife observation, photography.
Special Features: More than one million gray bats hibernate in the cave, and possibly as many as many as one million Indiana bats. Horizontal sections of the care are more than 15 miles long and it has vertical drops of 450 feet. Unrivaled formations, paleological and archeological finds, and a diverse cave fauna, have led to Fern Cave being described as the most spectacular cave in the U.S.
Habitats: 199 acres of upland hardwoods and limestone outcroppings.
Access: Fern Cave itself is not open to the public; other portions of the refuge are open, but limited, due to the terrain.
Wild life: Gray bat, Indiana bat, deer, squirrels, turkey, and American Hart's-tongue fern.

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See other parks in Alabama.