Learn About Wilderness

National Wildlife Refuge System

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The Wilderness Act of 1964 established the National 

Wilderness Preservation System. Today that system includes 

757 Congressionally designated wilderness areas comprising 

about 109.5 million acres in 44 states and Puerto Rico.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is one of four federal 

agencies with stewardship of designated wilderness. The others 

are the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service 

and the National Park Service.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages more than 

20 million acres of designated wilderness in the National 

Wildlife Refuge System – about one-fifth of all the designated 

wilderness areas in the nation. There are 75 wilderness areas on 

63 units of the Refuge System in 25 states. About 90 percent of 

Refuge System wilderness acreage is in Alaska. The U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Services also manages one other wilderness area – 

at Leadville National Fish Hatchery in Colorado. 

The Wilderness Act of 1964 – which was passed by Congress 

and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson – includes this 

definition:

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his 

own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an 

area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled 

by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An 

area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area 

of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character 

and influence, without permanent improvements or human 

habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its 

natural conditions ...”

Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, NE/Chuck Melvin

Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, SC/Jannah Dupre

Mingo National Wildlife Refuge, MO/Vergial Harp/USFWS

For More Information

National Wildlife Refuge System Wilderness page

http://www.fws.gov/refuges/whm/wilderness.html

Wilderness.net 

(an interagency database for wilderness information)

http://www.wilderness.net/

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

http://www.fws.gov/
Alaska Alaska Maritime 

Arctic 

Becharof 

Innoko 

Izembek 

Kenai 

Koyukuk

Selawik 

Togiak 

Yukon 

Arizona

Cabeza Prieta 

Havasu (partially in California) 

Imperial (partially in California)

Kofa 

Arkansas

Big Lake 

California

Farallon 

Havasu (partially in Arizona)

Imperial (partially in Arizona)

Florida

Cedar Keys 

Chassahowitzka 

Great White Heron 

Island Bay 

J.N. “Ding’’ Darling 

Key West 

Lake Woodruff

National Key Deer Refuge 

Passage Key 

Pelican Island 

St. Marks 

Georgia

Blackbeard Island 

Okefenokee 

Wolf Island 

Illinois

Crab Orchard 

Louisiana

Breton 

Lacassine 

Maine 

Moosehorn 

Massachusetts

Monomoy 

Michigan

Huron 

Michigan Islands 

Seney 

Minnesota

Agassiz 

Tamarac 

Missouri 

Mingo 

Montana 

Medicine Lake 

Red Rock Lakes 

UL Bend 

Nebraska

Fort Niobrara 

New Jersey 

Edwin B. Forsythe 

Great Swamp 

New Mexico 

Bitter Lake 

Bosque del Apache 

North Carolina

Swanquarter 

North Dakota

Chase Lake 

Lostwood 

Ohio

West Sister Island 

Oklahoma

Wichita Mountains 

Oregon

Oregon Islands 

Three Arch Rocks 

South Carolina

Cape Romain 

Washington

Copalis 

Flattery Rocks 

Quillayute Needles 

San Juan Islands 

Wisconsin

Gravel Island

Green Bay 

National Wildlife Refuges With at Least One Wilderness Area

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, NM/USFWS August 2013