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American alligators feed and rest in the water, and lay their eggs in dens they dig into the banks.
The young alligators spend their first several weeks in these dens. The marshes and open water of the refuge provide wintering areas for 23 species of migratory waterfowl, as well as a year-round home for great blue herons, great egrets, wood storks, cormorants, brown pelicans and other species of marsh and shore birds, as well as a variety of insects.