Technical Abstract: E. coli is commonly used as an indicator of fecal contamination, and hence public health risk, in surface waters. Freshwater bottom sediments have recently begun to receive attention as important sources of water-borne E. coli. Wildlife can be a substantial source of fecal microorganisms entering streams. However, little is known about the survival of E. coli from wildlife in surface waters and sediments. The objective of this work was to compare the survival of E. coli introduced into streambed sediments from goose, deer and bovine feces vs. indigenous E. coli. In addition, E. coli survival from the different fecal sources was determined in two streambed sediments differing in texture and organic matter content. The survival experiments were conducted in flow-through chambers for 32 days; the two sediments were obtained from a first order creek in Maryland. E. coli and total coliforms were enumerated using the Colilert-18 Quanti-Tray system. Patterns of E. coli survival and inactivation rates were virtually identical for indigenous strains in both mineral and organic sediments. The addition of E. coli strains from bovine, goose or deer feces had relatively little impact on final E. coli concentrations, with one exception. In the organic sediment, deer-borne E. coli populations appeared to stabilize or increase with time. These results are consistent with previous research suggesting that indigenous sediment-borne E. coli strains are more persistent than those added to sediments. Furthermore, these results imply that die-off rates obtained from inoculating sediments with high concentrations of E. coli strains may result in inaccurate estimates of E. coli persistence because it minimizes the importance of indigenous strains which have lower die-off rates.