Discover the Packsaddle Wildlife Management Area

A prime destination for outdoor fun and hunting, but the area also holds secrets from a distant past

In the heart of Ellis County, part of the Northwestern Electric Cooperative, the Packsaddle Wildlife Management Area spans nearly 20,000 pristine acres. This natural gem, located 17 miles south of Arnett on Highway 283, is where rolling sand hills meet wooded bottoms along the meandering South Canadian River.

It’s a popular destination for quail, turkey and deer hunting, yielding impressive bucks and the occasional mule deer each season. But another group hunts a completely different quarry.

The area holds secrets from the past slowly surfacing after 5 million to 12 million years underground. As visitors hike, hunt or watch birds, they walk on the land once occupied by prehistoric creatures that offer a glimpse into the distant past.

Diverse landscape and wildlife

The mixed grass prairie features big bluestem, Indiangrass, little bluestem, side-oats grama and buffalo grass swaying in the breeze amid shinnery oak, sagebrush and sand plum. This diverse habitat supports abundant wildlife.

Bobwhite quail reign supreme in the sandy soils and native grasses, luring hunters nationwide. It’s also a prime turkey and deer hunting destination. The managed ecosystem has made Packsaddle a hub for wildlife research, contributing insights into protected species’ health and habits. Partnerships with Ducks Unlimited, Quail Forever and others have constructed wetland units, exhibiting collaborative conservation efforts to maintain this refuge—a sanctuary for millions of years, scientists say.

“My great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents homesteaded on what is now part of the Packsaddle Wildlife Management Area near the Canadian River in Ellis County,” says Kenny Knowles, Northwestern Electric Cooperative board president. “The Packsaddle Area is a popular destination for wildlife enthusiasts, especially quail hunters. This is one of the last known excellent quail habitats left in the country.”

Because of its unique habitats, the area is the subject of research into quail and grassland habitat and management.

“It is part of the largest shinnery oak savannahs in the world,” says Knowles. “The views are spectacular, and the traffic is light. It’s a great place to see numerous wildlife that are native to this part of Oklahoma.”

Ancient fossils uncovered

In Packsaddle’s rugged hills, paleontologists and Native American college students unearth fossils of prehistoric camels, horses and elephant-like creatures that roamed the region when it was prime hunting grounds.

“We are finding various horses—large ones, small ones, different genera,” says Dr. Kent Smith, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences professor and Native Explorers program founder. “We have found two or more genera of camel as well, fossil dung and a possible proboscidean footprint—a prehistoric elephant-like creature.”

Among the most exciting: a fossilized footprint of a suspected “shovel-tusker” gomphothere, an elephant-like creature related to modern elephants.  Incredibly, Smith and a student independently discovered teeth that may have created that print.

While large dinosaur finds captivate the public, Smith stresses the Packsaddle fossils’ equal importance by reconstructing the mid-to-late Miocene epoch landscape and life 5 million to 12 million years ago. The fossils open a crucial window into modern mammal evolution and how climate change and a 6.5-million-year-old extinction event impacted them.

“We expected diversity to change, but it declined in all groups as the extinction event neared,” Smith says. “Studying the fossils and local geology reveals what existed then and the environment, because you can track trends over time.”

The 2010-established Native Explorers program offers Native American college students rare hands-on experience alongside professionals while earning college credits. Their latest Packsaddle expedition in May 2024 included six tribal student participants.

“We use rich fossil areas like Packsaddle to teach Native students the scientific process through an Indigenous lens,” says Jeff Hargrave, Native Explorers’ executive director. “Native people were North America’s first paleontologists, using fossils for tools and ceremonies. Incorporating Indigenous Framework practices, they learned cultural traditions while doing real science.”

Packsaddle has Miocene-aged fossils of camels, rhinos, three-toed horses and gomphotheres. The program showed the Native students how to prospect for and collect fossil remains, and how to use a compass and topographic map for land navigation in areas where digital technology is unavailable.

“They learned the proper way to collect and identify fossils that were found,” Hargrave adds. “It should be noted all fossils discovered are deposited in the Sam Noble Museum, which is the state of Oklahoma’s officially designated museum of natural history.”

In addition to the fossils themselves, Smith’s team collects rock samples like volcanic ash deposits to determine an absolute date for the site. But dating is only one small piece of the scientific puzzle. There’s also the monumental task of carefully identifying, extracting, preserving and cataloging the specimens for scientific study.

While most visitors come to Packsaddle for recreation like hunting, Smith welcomes others to experience its natural and cultural wonders through a different lens—by learning about the flora, geology and somber history tied to the area. The latter includes an 1800s massacre site where Smith’s Comanche ancestors met a tragic fate.

“I have Comanche [students] and some are descendants of those people who were present in the 1800s when Gen. George Custer (cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars) came through and slaughtered the children and the women,” he says. “We believe it is important to share our knowledge about the event, which often differs from that of the government.”

Just go out and enjoy it

While the paleontological wonders uncovered at Packsaddle are off limits to the public, plenty of ways still exist for visitors to experience and appreciate this unique Oklahoma landscape. The 19,000-acre property offers prime hunting grounds with hunting permits and guidance available through the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

For a quieter adventure, Packsaddle allows hiking, wildlife viewing and plant identification.

“You can go out there and learn about the living plants and animals and rich Native American culture,” Smith says. “You can buy books on Oklahoma geology or visit the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History to learn about those areas. The area surrounding Packsaddle also holds traces of Native American history, like the Washita Battle Site.”

Whether exploring for rocks underfoot or embracing the nature and heritage above ground, Packsaddle Wildlife Management Area offers a multi-layered experience connecting Oklahoma’s ancient past with its great outdoors today.

As Smith advises, “Go out and enjoy it!”