The Wetlands Institute

The Wetlands Institute was founded in the late 1960s, at a time when coastal marshes up and down the East Coast were being drained and filled for development. Recognizing that these wetlands were among the most productive ecosystems on earth, its founders set out to study, teach about, and protect the great marsh that surrounds it. The land it sits on and watches over is preserved from development, a rare thing on the crowded Jersey Shore.

This coast is part of the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people, who fished, gathered shellfish, and traveled the tidal creeks of these marshes for thousands of years before European settlement. Their descendants, including the state-recognized Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape community, remain a living part of New Jersey today, and the marshes the institute protects are landscapes their ancestors knew intimately.

Today the institute combines active scientific research with public education. Its scientists study the health of the marsh, track its wildlife, and run programs to protect species under pressure, while its exhibits, trails, and live-animal encounters bring visitors face to face with an ecosystem they might otherwise overlook. It is that rare place where serious conservation science and a fun family outing meet in the same building.

The institute is best known for two of its long-running programs. It has worked for decades to protect the diamondback terrapin, a marsh turtle whose nesting females are often killed on coastal roads, rescuing eggs and raising hatchlings. And it studies and helps protect horseshoe crabs, whose spawning on the bay beaches is a globally important event, feeding migrating shorebirds and supplying a compound vital to human medicine.

The centerpiece for visitors is the view. An observation tower rises above the institute, and from it the salt marsh opens out for miles, a shimmering plain of grass, water, and sky where you can watch herons stalk the shallows and ospreys hunt from platform nests. Boardwalk trails lead out over the marsh and along the tidal creeks, bringing you right down into the grass and mud where the life of the wetland unfolds.

Inside, aquariums and exhibits introduce the creatures of the marsh, and live-animal programs let visitors, especially children, meet terrapins, horseshoe crabs, and other marsh residents up close. Hands-on activities, touch tanks, and guided programs make the salt marsh, easy to dismiss from a car window, suddenly vivid and full of story. It is education by encounter rather than by placard.

The salt marsh the institute watches over is one of the richest habitats on the coast. Twice a day the tides flood and drain it, and the grasses, cordgrass and salt hay, feed a web of life from tiny invertebrates up to the great wading birds. The marsh is a nursery where young fish, crabs, and shrimp grow up sheltered from the open sea, which is why it matters so much to the health of the whole coastal ocean.

For birders it is a treasure. Herons, egrets, ibis, and terns feed in the creeks, ospreys nest on platforms across the marsh, and in migration the mudflats and beaches fill with clouds of shorebirds. The horseshoe crab spawn on nearby Delaware Bay beaches draws hungry migrating birds by the tens of thousands, one of the great wildlife spectacles of the region, and the institute is at the center of the effort to understand and protect it.

Spring is a spectacular time, when the horseshoe crabs spawn, migrating shorebirds pour through by the thousands, and the marsh comes alive with returning herons and ospreys. It is arguably the institute's richest season for wildlife.

Summer is warm and busy, with the marsh at its greenest, terrapins nesting, and family programs in full swing. It is a lively time, though the marsh can be buggy, so come prepared.

Fall brings the return migration of shorebirds and raptors, cooler air, and thinning crowds, along with beautiful low light over the golden marsh grass. It is a fine season for birding and quiet walks.

Winter is stark and peaceful, the marsh browned and windswept, with wintering ducks, raptors, and the occasional snowy owl to reward the hardy visitor. The institute's indoor exhibits keep the experience rich even in the cold.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.