Wildlife Makes Tracks as Water Rises in Midwest
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ST. PAUL, Minn. — The flooding Mississippi River has forced countless deer, squirrels, turkeys, beavers and muskrats from their homes, and migrating birds this fall will have to find new sources of food, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said most of the 28,000-acre Mark Twain National Wildlife Refuge, which covers parts of three states along the Mississippi from Davenport, Iowa, to just north of St. Louis, is under water.
Birds such as warblers, wood thrushes, mallards and terns, as well as toads, frogs and salamanders, have also been forced out, it said.
The agency said the region will be unable to support the annual bird migration this fall and perhaps next spring.
In such situations, migrating birds usually will spread out to other points in the flyway in search of food, a spokeswoman for the agency said.
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