Волчья река: История и природа Теннесси и Миссисипи

Water course in Mississippi and Tennessee, United States
the river in West Tennessee

The Wolf River is a 105 mile (169 km) alluvial river in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, whose confluence with the Mississippi River was the site of various Chickasaw, French, Spanish and American communities that eventually became Memphis, Tennessee. It is estimated to be about 12,000 years old, formed by glacier runoff carving into the region's soft alluvial soil. It should not be confused with The Wolf River (Middle Tennessee) which flows primarily in Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. The Wolf River rises in the Holly Springs National Forest at Baker's Pond in Benton County, Mississippi, and flows northwest into Tennessee, before entering the Mississippi River north of downtown Memphis. In 1985, the Wolf River Conservancy was formed in opposition to plans for additional channel dredging. In 1995 the "Ghost River" section of the Wolf was saved from timber auction by a coordinated effort of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, local conservation activists, and the Wolf River Conservancy. In 1997 the river was designated an American Heritage River by presidential proclamation under a special United States Environmental Protection Agency program. In that same year, musician Jeff Buckley accidentally drowned in the Wolf River while swimming in Memphis. In 2005 the Wolf River Restoration Project was commenced to stop rapid erosion at Collierville, Tennessee. The river serves to mitigate flooding and erosion, as habitat for wildlife, as a recreational area, as well as supplying clean water to an underground aquifer.

The Wolf River rises in the Holly Springs National Forest at Baker's Pond in Benton County, Mississippi, north of Ashland, and flows northwest into Tennessee, draining a large portion of Memphis and northern and eastern Shelby County, Tennessee, before entering the Mississippi River near the northern end of Mud Island, north of downtown Memphis.

The Wolf River area is home to deer, otter, mink, bobcat, fox, coyote, wild turkey, and a wide variety of waterfowl, reptiles, amphibians, and aquatic life. Migrating osprey, great egret, and bald eagle have been spotted along this river as well. There are Tennessee state record trees located in its bottomland forests, including a Tupelo Gum that is 17 feet (5 m) in circumference. Other hardwoods include green ash, red maple, swamp chestnut oak, blackgum, and the majestic bald cypress. Native flowering plants include cardinal flower, ironweed, swamp iris, false loosestrife, spatterdock, swamp rose, blue phlox and spring cress. Twenty five species of freshwater mussels (unionidae) have been documented. Their dependence on good water quality makes them vulnerable to pollution. A growing number of these species of plants and animals can be found in the urban reaches of the Wolf in Memphis, as the legacy of community action and the Clean Water Act slowly heals the degraded downstream section. On 27 March 2018, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) reported that its personnel had videoed a 7 feet (2 m) alligator at the Wolf River Wildlife Management Area in Fayette County, Tennessee, one in a series of confirmed recent sightings of the reptile in West Tennessee. The reptiles are moving into Tennessee across its southern state line; TWRA has not stocked alligators in Tennessee.