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Lost Forests of the Mississippi
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The forests of the Mississippi River Delta must have seemed endless to the first settlers. A vast forest, 24 million acres in size, blanketed parts of what would one day become Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. This was a land of towering trees, free-flowing rivers, and abundant wildlife.
By the beginning of the 20th century, however, the great forests were being over-harvested and the giant trees shipped across the country. As forests were cleared and wetlands drained, fields of cotton, rice, and soybeans began to take their place.
Today, only four million acres of bottomland hardwood forest remain across the Delta. The forests of the Mississippi River Delta are now considered one of the world's most imperiled ecosystems.
Gaps in Nature: Extinct Species
With such widespread loss of habitat, several animal and plant species declined. Some species disappeared from Arkansas, while others were lost entirely.
One of the most colorful birds ever to grace this region was the Carolina parakeet. The United States' only native parrot nested in the bottomland hardwood forests along Delta rivers. When John James Audubon traveled Arkansas's shoreline of the Mississippi River in 1820 he noted "woods literally filled with parakeets." Loss of swamp nesting sites hastened the decline and extinction of the Carolina parakeet.
