Red Slough Wildlife Management Area
Wetland Restored From Rice Farmland, Managed By The US Forest Service With The Oklahoma Department Of Wildlife Conservation · Idabel, Oklahoma
5,814 acres of restored wetland in the far south-eastern corner of Oklahoma, where a failed rice-farming operation in the Red River bottoms was turned back into marsh, swamp and moist-soil units by the Forest Service and the state wildlife department. The result is the most southern-feeling place in Oklahoma: American alligators live here at the north-western edge of their range, along with roseate spoonbills, wood storks, purple gallinules, anhingas and some 320 recorded bird species and 91 butterfly species, several of the birds never recorded anywhere else in the state. Birders drive across the country for it, and the organised way in is the Red Slough Birding Convention each May. The whole area is closed to motorised vehicles — no cars, trucks or quad bikes — so visitors park at one of five car parks and walk the levee and dirt roads to nine observation platforms. There is no visitor centre, no drinking water, no restroom and no camping, and mosquitoes in summer are extraordinary. A Forest Order in force from July 2026 to July 2028 also closes the refuge core around the five main reservoirs to all public use every year from 15 October to 31 January, leaving the rest of the area open.
Red Slough Wildlife Management Area, off US Highway 70 near Idabel, Idabel, Oklahoma, 74745, United States
Open 24 hours, free, but on foot only — the area is closed to motor vehicles. The refuge core around the five main reservoirs closes to all public use from 15 October to 31 January each year under a Forest Order running to July 2028 (check fs.usda.gov/r08/ouachita or call 580-494-6402).
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