Habitat diversity draws bird watchers, hunters to Iowa’s Copeland Bend Wildlife Area

Forty miles south of Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River is the 3,500-plus-acre Copeland Bend Wildlife Area, an expansive mix of grasslands and high-quality wetlands constructed after the extensive flooding in 2011, when the big river was closed to boating, and levees up and down the Big Muddy were breached.

After the waters receded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to relocate and rebuild the levy system away from the river, creating a series of shallow wetlands and borrow pits as materials were needed to construct the new levee.

On this cloud-free June morning, pheasants can be seen scurrying on the gravel topped levees and heard crowing in the grassland. Great blue herons are fishing in the shallow floodwaters. Ring billed gulls are swooping above the water surface. Mourning doves are seemingly everywhere.

A state endangered short-eared owl was seen nesting here in 2005, and state endangered least terns have been here. Crayfish snakes, a species of greatest conservation need, have also been documented on Copeland Bend.

“The levee setback was a major win-win here with lots of wetland development,” said Matt Dollison, wildlife biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Nishnabotna Wildlife Unit.

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The Missouri River is a major migration corridor popular with bird watchers and duck and goose hunters. The shallow wetlands offer ducks and geese a stopping point on the migration and hunters a walk-in hunting spot.

“The nice thing about this area is you can see water birds and shorebirds on the wetlands, and there is about a 2,000-acre block of grassland here supporting grassland species,” Dollison said. There is a timber component, he said, that supports mushroom and deer hunting.

The five-mile-long levee is topped with gravel and is a good place to walk or bike, and to see wildlife. Three deeper borrow pits have fish in them and are available to kayak. “Bow fishing carp is prime time here, when there is shallow flood water,” he said.

Another improvement came after the 2019 flood, when the Iowa Department of Transportation installed a larger flow-through under U.S. Hwy. 2 to allow more water under the road. So far, the road has not been closed due to flooding.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acquired about 3,000 acres, the State of Iowa has roughly 500 acres along the river. The crescent shaped, State of Iowa land, is right on the river and could be a good place for paddlers to pull off for primitive camping or bow hunters to boat in for a different type of hunt. Checking the hunting atlas can help with navigating the area.

“Much of this flood prone land was enrolled in permanent USDA wetland easements, prior to being purchased by the Corps and State of Iowa, so there are limits to what management we can do,” he said.

Prescribed fire is a major management tool used to manage habitat and keep trees in check. “A local farmer partners with the DNR to do a lot of the habitat work, through an agricultural lease, that we call a habitat lease,” said Dollison.