Otter Slough Conservation Area Lakes
General data
- Name: Otter Slough Conservation Area Lakes
- Water system: Mississippi River
- Water type: Natural lake
- Progression: Lick Creek (St. Francis River tributary) -> St. Francis River (Mississippi tributary) -> Mississippi River -> Gulf of Mexico -> Atlantic Ocean -> Planet Earth
- Climates: Continental
- Continents: North America
- Countries: United States of America
Otter Slough Conservation Area is a large wetland and bottomland forest complex in southeastern Missouri — a remnant of the once–extensive sloughs, oxbows, and swamps that characterized this region of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. It contains features like Otter Lake (about 250 acres), Cypress Lake (~93 acres), and other shallow sloughs, borrow pits, and lowland wetlands. The water bodies within Otter Slough CA are part of a natural wetland network that connects to the larger St. Francis River watershed. Although the area doesn’t have a single big, clearly named “outlet river,” the wetlands and lakes have historically been connected to Lick Creek — a tributary of the St. Francis River — through old oxbow channels and lowland drainage patterns.