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Coastal Reserves Conserve Habitat, Offer Fishing & Hunting Access
Almost all of the nation’s 30 Estuarine Research Reserves allow rod and gun recreation, and we can help ensure they receive continued Congressional support
If you’re a seasoned saltwater angler, you know that healthy estuaries mean healthy sportfish populations. Take the Chesapeake Bay or Florida Everglades, for example. Without these semi-enclosed, shallow-water systems and the menhaden, mullet, ballyhoo, herring, and other forage fish and crustaceans they support, there would be no recreational fishing because there would be no sportfish left that rely on them. What you might not know is that there’s a system of research reserves around the nation that for more than 50 years has been dedicated to conserving coastal habitat, while offering hunting and angling opportunities, youth education, and community support.
The National Estuarine Research Reserve System is a network of 30 coastal sites designated to protect and study the nation’s diverse estuarine systems, with sites on every coast and the Great Lakes. Funding is provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal agencies with matching state and private funds, and the reserves are managed by a state agency or university with input from local partners.
95 percent of the reserves allow fishing and 85 percent permit hunting.
The reserves span the breadth of the country’s highly varied estuarine habitats, such as mangrove forests, beaches, salt marshes, rocky intertidal zones, oyster reefs, and mud flats, and most contain extensive submerged aquatic vegetation that provides critical fish habitat. These reserves also provide public access to more than 1.4 million acres of coastal lands and waters.
“They protect places and people all around the coasts,” said Rebecca Roth, executive director of the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association (NERRA), a non-regulatory body that supports the system of reserves. “Every reserve is there because people cared passionately about the place and worked hard to get it designated.”
Benefits For Recreation, Education, & Economies
Over decades, National Estuarine Research Reserves have created a national dataset that provides a record of how coastal weather, water quality, sea levels, habitat, and vegetation have changed over time – all collected, synthesized, and analyzed according to stringent standards, to be used by scientists, resource managers, and others. Roth says the reserves also address climate change concerns at each site 365 days of the year, to track short-term changes and long-term trends on the coasts.
“We are the only national network that comes with a standardized estuary monitoring program, integrated science and education programs, strong connections to local communities, and a dedication to sharing what is learned across a national network,” Roth said.
Reserves provide key opportunities for education and training for outreach efforts about the data collected there. They demonstrate the value of conserving habitat to schoolkids and people of all ages, with more than 73,000 K-12 students benefiting in 2022 alone, and coordinate citizen science and volunteer cleanup efforts. Each year they sustain more than 10,000 jobs – providing significant local economic inputs – and are visited by more than 650,000 recreationists.
“Coastal reserves protect essential breeding habitats, act as natural buffers against rising sea levels, and support species adaptation to climate change,” said Jamelle Ellis, TRCP senior scientist. “By preserving ecosystems, they enhance climate resilience for wildlife and ensure sustainable outdoor recreation opportunities.”
The management plans that direct current reserves allow for recreational fishing in 28 of the 30 sites, and hunting in 25 of them. Regardless of whether sporting is allowed on these properties, however, all provide nurseries for species like sportfish and the forage fish they depend on for food. The wetlands and shellfish reefs they protect also help filter water and their lands serve as terrestrial habitat refuges for game species like deer and waterfowl to ensure more robust local populations. Other recreation activities popular at these sites include bird watching, hiking, and paddling.
NERRA’s Roth says that as more and more coastal lands are developed, the reserves become even more important as habitat for game species and places where anglers can target inshore species like redfish and striped bass. “We know that 75 percent of all fish caught begin their life in the nursery grounds of an estuary,” said Roth. “When you protect these waters and provide proper stewardship of the lands that surround them, you protect the nursery.”
A Long History
In the late ‘60s, America’s coasts were under intense pressure from population growth and development was taking a toll on coastal lands, waters, and wildlife. As a result, in 1972 Congress passed the Coastal Zone Management Act to set national policy to “preserve, protect, develop, and where possible, to restore or enhance, the resources of the Nation’s coastal zone.” The act provided a backbone for creating the Research Reserve System. Through this act, states maintain rights to sustainably manage their own coasts while receiving federal financial and technical support. The act would later authorize the Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP), which protects ecologically important coastal lands and those with other values, such as recreational opportunities or historic features.
The CZMA has been amended 11 times since its initial passage to expand authorities and add focus areas, and NERRA is seeking in this federal legislative session for Congress to again reauthorize and update the reserve program and authorize funding for the Reserve System and the coast and estuarine land conservation program. Congress has not provided authorizations for either the national reserve system or CELCP since fiscal years 1999 and 2013, respectively.
“This has major implications for habitat protections, as the Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program under the CZMA has already protected more than 100,000 acres using matched federal and state funding,” said David Pelikan, TRCP climate resilience program manager.
As it does every year, NERRA is requesting that Congress provide funding to address operations, research, facilities, and procurement and acquisition of new properties. Authorized funding amounts to reflect the needs of the coastal communities are being sought through passage of H.R. 6841, the Resilient Coasts and Estuaries Act, which was introduced in Congress last December. The bill would direct NOAA to designate five new reserves, significantly increasing the areas studied and protected and creating many more opportunities for angling and other public recreation, more habitat for fisheries, more coastal lands to protect communities from extreme weather, and more opportunities for businesses that rely on healthy coastal environments. The bill also would establish in statute existing reserve programs like Coastal Training that support fisheries, businesses, and communities and direct their execution as a matter of national policy, to ensure that these programs continue to serve communities in the future.
What Are Specific Reserves Doing?
There are too many research reserves to allow detailed descriptions of each. Below are a few examples to demonstrate the breadth and variety of the system.
Rookery Bay
Located in southwest Florida near Naples, the Rookery Bay Research Reserve offers spectacular fishing, teeming with inshore fish species like redfish, snook, and tarpon in its extensive mangrove habitats, and provides refuge for more than 50 species of birds. It offers an environmental learning center, and as part of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, its wetlands benefits from clean water coming south and serves as a final filter for water entering the Ten Thousand Islands area of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem. This reserve is closely tied into the local community and has used its offices to convene emergency responders during hurricanes. This is one of three reserves in Florida.
Click here to tell lawmakers to support Everglades conservation
Chesapeake Bay
With more than 30 miles of waterfront on the Maryland side of the Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Research Reserve offers extensive fishing access over oyster reefs and seagrass beds for inshore species like redfish and flounder – as well as edible invasive species like blue catfish – plus habitat for baitfish like menhaden, 44 miles of hiking/paddling trails, and a nature discovery center targeting youths. A similar reserve also exists on the Virginia portion of the Bay.
Kachemak Bay
Home to chinook and coho salmon, halibut, whales, and many seabirds, the Kachemak Bay Reserve’s research on juvenile salmon supports Alaska’s $595 million-dollar commercial fishing industry. Also, commercial fishermen are brought upstream of the reserve to learn firsthand about the importance of protecting the watershed’s habitat to benefit salmon and jobs that depend on them. The reserve brings $1.2 million of federal and state finding to the local economy each year and helps recreational shellfish harvesters respond to toxic algal blooms.
Any new reserves must permit existing recreational fishing and hunting.
Coming Soon
Designations are already underway for two new reserves in the U.S. – in Louisiana and Wisconsin. More will be added if Congress reauthorizes the CZMA. A third site in the U.S. Virgin Islands also would be advanced in its designation status, and a reserve in Michigan and new sites in Maine and Florida are in the pipeline. Any new reserve must permit existing commercial/recreational fishing, hunting, and other cultural uses.
A Louisiana reserve is already in the final review process for its designation. This site is located in the Atchafalaya Basin of the Mississippi River Delta and would support not only local fisheries and economies, but also protect coastal habitats, ensure a perpetual undeveloped buffer to protect communities from the more frequent and severe storms expected because of climate change, and create better access to the Atchafalaya Basin and its delta system of over 4,000 acres of wetlands. The reserve will also allow the opportunity to educate the public about sea level rise, land subsidence, and the importance of restoring more natural sediment flows from the Mississippi to build back land and wetland habitat.
Click here to learn how you can advocate for habitat-driven climate solutions in your state.
In The Arena: Dr. Bryan Watts
TRCP’s “In the Arena” series highlights the individual voices of hunters and anglers who, as Theodore Roosevelt so famously said, strive valiantly in the worthy cause of conservation.
Bryan Watts
Hometown: Williamsburg, Virginia
Occupation: Professor and director of the Center for Conservation Biology, College of William & Mary
Conservation credentials: Dr. Watts leads multi-year research efforts on many avian species, including a project tracking long-term osprey nesting success in the Chesapeake Bay. He also founded his college’s Center for Conservation Biology and has designed and conducted more than 1,000 research projects related to birds found throughout the Western Hemisphere and particularly in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Dr. Bryan Watts studies a wide range of avian issues, from waterbirds on barrier island beaches and bald eagles in the Chesapeake Bay to the effects of human-caused stressors on bird species in coastal regions. His ongoing research of osprey reproductive success in the Chesapeake recently has gotten a lot of attention. In 2023 and 2024 his data have shown a significant decline in nesting success for ospreys located in saltwater areas, which he attributes to a lack of menhaden – a critically important forage fish – for food. This apparent lack of menhaden (also known as bunker or pogies), which TRCP and partners have sounded the alarm on for years due to similar negative effects on striped bass and other sportfish that rely on them, has been difficult to demonstrate with hard data due to Virginia’s continued unwillingness to fund a study on local menhaden populations in the Bay. Watts is a Mitchell A. Byrd Research Professor of Conservation Biology with a PhD in ecology from the University of Georgia and 40-plus years of research experience. But long before he ever became an ecological scientist, he was just a kid out in the woods, hunting, fishing, and exploring with the Boy Scouts.
Here is his story.
I was in the woods with my family before I could walk. When I was five, I started to attend Boy Scouts (my father was Scoutmaster). I was introduced to hunting and fishing by other scouts and Scoutmasters. By the time I was 12, I was spending most of my time in the woods hunting, fishing, trapping, digging ginseng, picking berries, and birding. I was fortunate to spend all of my formative years in the woods surrounded by the natural world. Those times would shape my life’s path.
I have had hundreds of great times in the field in multiple countries, but one that stands out is a float trip on the Greenbrier River in West Virginia. I was 14 and spent two days, along with six other boys and Edsel Whaling, a U.S. Marine Veteran and prominent Scout leader, out on the river. We floated about 30 miles, fishing for smallmouth bass. We slept under an overhang along the river. We cooked bass over a fire and used the heads to catch crayfish in the shallows and cooked them also, in a tin can over the fire. That experience has been hard to beat.
“The smell and sounds of the woods and the feel of the air make me feel like I am home.
If I could hunt or fish anywhere, I would be back along the rivers and high streams of West Virginia, fishing for smallmouth bass or brook trout. There is a familiarity there that makes me feel like I belong. The smell and sounds of the woods and the feel of the air make me feel like I am home.
I have been a professional conservation biologist for 40 years. I have worked on hundreds of conservation projects addressing many species and many problems. One recent project has investigated the causes of poor breeding performance in Chesapeake Bay osprey. My Center has worked with osprey since 1970. Over the past 20 years, we have become increasingly concerned about the role of menhaden availability in osprey nesting success in the main stem of the Bay. Like many conservation problems, we need to seek a balance between the needs of industry and the ecosystem. I am confident that we can find such a balance.
I am most proud of the fact that as a community of American outdoorsmen and women, we care about what happens to different species. I have never met a true outdoorsman who did not genuinely care about the welfare of a species. Just knowing that we as a community and society are working toward the welfare of other species really enhances the experience of being outdoors.
The largest conservation challenge that we face in the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain is habitat loss. Continued expansion of the urban footprint comes at the expense of natural habitats that many of our most vulnerable species depend on. We are fortunate to have large tracts of unspoiled land owned by government agencies, NGOs, and private individuals. We need to work toward expanding the green infrastructure to protect habitat for future generations. The hunting and fishing community has been one of the strongest supporters of this effort.
We have a responsibility to pass on the natural environment that we have enjoyed to future generations. Conservation is an all-hands-on-deck activity. If we do not all work together to restore and protect the species we have now, and the habitats they depend on, we will not have them tomorrow.
Everyone who enjoys hunting and fishing and being outdoors understands that we cannot take the natural world for granted. Places and species are treasures to be safeguarded across generations. There is a peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that we have done what we can do to pass these places along.
Reflections on Salmonflies, Big Trout, and Winter Range
The author, TRCP’s Western conservation communications manager, remembers how a day of good Spring fishing can reveal the importance of intact habitats and healthy winter range for big game
Salmonflies, big as hummingbirds, flew so close to my head my first reaction was to duck. Alders shook in the breeze that carried the massive stoneflies out over the river, and flycatchers and robins did their best imitations of peregrine falcons as they launched after the orange T-bone steaks. Trout, braving the surface for meals equal to a thousand trico mayflies, gulped and slapped the bugs with such intensity any angler might honestly think a child was throwing rocks into the current. This was a good time to be in the Lolo National Forest, an opportunity my buddy James and I wouldn’t miss.
Still needing to cling to the streamside willows, I worked my way from eddy to eddy where rocks interrupted the flow. My size 10 skinny salmonfly buoyed a size 10 black stonefly pattern that probed below. The first fish was a foot-long rainbow on the edge of a glide. She must’ve known her cousins just to the west in Idaho make annual trips to the sea and she was inspired by them. Going airborne and catching the current twice, the trout fought above her weight class, and I thanked her as she kicked back into the shallows after I freed the hook.
The Lolo National Forest stretches across 2 million acres of western Montana. This landscape offers vital habitat for elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep, and moose, and invaluable, intact cold-water systems home to native fish like bull trout and Westslope cutthroat as well as wild rainbow, brown, and brook trout. These millions of acres support innumerable recreation and commercial opportunities that provide thousands of jobs in local communities.
As with all National Forests, land management plans must be updated periodically, and the Lolo’s has not been revised in over two decades. In that time, new challenges have arisen that must be addressed, including increased outdoor recreation, the growing presence of noxious weeds, and the impacts of decades of fire suppression combined with hotter, drier weather. And with burgeoning exurban development, winter and transitional ranges for elk and deer continue to fragment on neighboring private lands.
The brown missed the nymph on my first float. I could see the fish turn, but when I lifted the rod there was nothing. I bit the inside of my cheek and told myself to wait. The flies smacked the rock and began their second drift. I saw the trout come unstuck again, and when the top fly disappeared, I was connected.
Then I ran downstream.
The brute rode the swift water down. I tried to turn the brown and grinned at myself for foolishly not using 3x. The fish worked below me, but made a poor choice to head back upstream, fighting both the current and me. James netted the exhausted trout, and we admired the golden sides void of talon marks and a mouth uncut by tippet or hooks. An unlikely, unscathed mature fish returned to the river.
As we climbed the bank to continue to the next run, we saw the old scat of wintering elk, pellets a chalky brown under the ponderosa pines. A few of their tracks were still caught in the path where mud dried a month or more ago. Their presence a reminder that our feet could carry us from the river to the peaks of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, all on contiguous public land.
A top priority for TRCP is to ensure the Lolo recognizes that in the decades since the existing forest plans were finalized, several important big game migrations and winter ranges for elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep in western Montana have been identified.
The Lolo is currently in the process of updating its land use plan, and engaged hunters and anglers will have upcoming opportunities this year to speak up for a successful planning outcome that conserves important big game and fisheries habitats and maintains special places for outdoor recreation. A top priority for TRCP is to ensure the Lolo recognizes that in the decades since the existing forest plans were finalized, several important big game migrations and winter ranges for elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep in western Montana have been identified.
Over 2,000 elk roam the Blackfoot and Clearwater watersheds. These herds mostly calve and spend their summers in the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat Wilderness areas at the northernmost reaches of the Lolo. As winter dumps feet of snow in the high meadows, the elk drop down onto private, state, and Bureau of Land Management land along the rivers.
The Forest Service must incorporate the latest science, utilize the best-available conservation tools, and prioritize coordination with other stakeholders to safeguard big game corridors and winter range as the agency initiates the forest plan revision process for these public lands.
The day turned to evening and we made our way back to the vehicle. Drained from fighting the water and cobble, we trudged toward the fantasy of pizza and burgers once we made it back to town.
Then the pool came into view.
The current hugged the large bolder like an old friend. It was a place that a trout would feel safe and happy: depth, a bubble line buffet, and the barrier of a rock field to keep most anglers away.
But we braved the rock field and James worked the bubble line until his salmonfly was pulled under by the great-grandma of the rainbow I caught earlier. Rod doubled over, he climbed the rock over and back as the trout couldn’t decide which way to run. Finally, she settled in the shallows, and I returned the favor of netting the fish for my friend. Already recovered from the spawn, the fish was strong and turning silver, with a pink cheek clinging to the spring cold.
Swallows had filled the air, chasing a hatch of mayflies upstream. Beyond them were grassy parks that in the evening would welcome mule deer and elk, all of them feeding and moving higher.
Photos courtesy of James Wicks
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Sporting Groups Unite Around Policy Recommendations to Strengthen Wetlands Conservation Efforts
Conserving wetlands and streams is critical to the hunting and angling community.
Today, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, along with valued partners representing sporting and conservation interests released its Sporting Community Wetland and Stream Platform which outlines several policy recommendations seeking to strengthen federal wetland conservation efforts.
Conserving wetlands and streams is critical to the hunting and angling community. Wetlands and streams provide crucial public benefits, including supporting fish and wildlife habitat, helping to recharge water supplies, reducing flood impacts, and enhancing water quality. Yet, wetlands and streams are at risk more than ever. The most recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Wetlands Status and Trends Report finds that more than half of wetlands in the lower 48 states are gone, and loss rates have increased by 50 percent since 2009. Additionally, the recent loss of federal protections for many wetlands and streams has made it much more difficult for federal agencies to safeguard some of our most vulnerable waters from pollution and destruction. Without additional conservation actions to protect these ecosystems, wetland loss will likely continue, reducing ecosystem benefits for people and habitat for fish and wildlife.
These waters provide habitat for more than half of North American waterfowl, critical spawning grounds for salmon and trout, and drinking water for millions of people.
Given these challenges, the sporting and conservation community acknowledges that lifting up federal and state wetland and stream conservation efforts will be important. Our platform includes recommendations for action by both Congress and federal agencies. “With these recommendations, we intend to unite and amplify the voices of hunters, anglers, and conservationists whose outdoor traditions depend on conserving wetlands and streams,” said Alex Funk, Director of Water Resources at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “TRCP is eager to work with partners to advance these recommendations while working to secure long-term protections for our country’s wetlands and streams.
“Conservation and restoration of wetlands and tributary streams are essential to securing safe drinking water for all Americans, fighting the climate crisis, and providing essential habitat for fish and wildlife,” said Jared Mott, Conservation Director of Izaak Walton League of America. “These recommendations are a helpful roadmap for limiting alarming declines in the number and productivity of these ecosystems in the face of the elimination of longstanding Clean Water Act protections. The League is proud to collaborate with our partners and announce these proactive steps we must take to save the nation’s wetlands and waterways and ensure a future with clean water.”
Photo Credit: Christian Fritschi
“Hunters and anglers understand that wildlife rely on healthy, abundant water bodies. Last year, the Supreme Court unwisely removed longstanding protections for many streams, wetlands and floodplains – leaving them vulnerable to pollution and destruction,” said Glenn Watkins, Senior Policy Specialist of Water Resources at National Wildlife Federation. “While a full restoration of federal protections is needed to safeguard our waters, this platform lays out commonsense actions Congress and federal agencies can take in the meantime,” said Abby Tinsley, vice president for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation. “These measures will help support healthy populations of ducks, fish and other game species while protecting drinking water supplies and reducing flooding.”
Read the full suite of recommendations and policy platform HERE.
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
CHEERS TO CONSERVATION
Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences hunting and fishing certainly fueled his passion for conservation, but it seems that a passion for coffee may have powered his mornings. In fact, Roosevelt’s son once said that his father’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub.” TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to bring together his two loves: a strong morning brew and a dedication to conservation. With your purchase, you’ll not only enjoy waking up to the rich aroma of this bolder roast—you’ll be supporting the important work of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities for all.
$4 from each bag is donated to the TRCP, to help continue their efforts of safeguarding critical habitats, productive hunting grounds, and favorite fishing holes for future generations.
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