Ballard Wildlife Management Area is located in Ballard County and is part of the Mississippi River floodplain. It contains approximately 8,200 acres comprised of bottomland hardwoods, interspersed with numerous oxbow lakes, tupelo and cypress swamps, grasslands and agricultural fields. The management emphasis for the area is to provide wintering habitat for migrating waterfowl. However like all natural wetland ecosystems it is rich in wildlife diversity.

The area is closed to visitation from October 15 to March 15 annually. It contains 25 miles of maintained gravel roads where visitors may access the area March 16 to October 14 to view wildlife . There is a 2 mile driving loop that is open year round that takes you to elevated viewing platforms and photography blind located on Goose Trap Slough. A 1/2 mile interpretive walking trail with an elevated wetland walkway accesses Beaver Dam Slough and an adjacent native grass field provides visitors with a glimpse of native grass prairie that was once a larger part of the landscape in Kentucky.