Transcript: Biodiverse Regions: Blood River

The Blood River seeps State Nature Preserve and the Blood River system are considered one of the most biologically diverse areas you can find in Kentucky. It is about 192 acres. It was purchased for the coastal plains acid seeps, but it also encompasses uh bottom land forest, subxeric acid forest, and Tupelo slews.

There is a variety of habitats here so you kind of create a hot spot of biodiversity allowing for more species to be found here because of all those systems being here together. Seeps are a type of wetlands. Wetlands are nature’s water filter. They take up pollutants and cycle them out. They purify your water.

What makes a seep a seep is water going through sand and gravel, and then in this area it is coming down at the base of the hill, and it flows down through this acid seep system into the bottom land hardwood forest. Only two percent of Kentucky’s land is is wetland and most of it is right here.