Northeast Coastal Areas Study
Significant Coastal Habitats
Site 19 (NY)
I. SITE NAME: Harbor Herons Rookery Complex
II. LOCATION: Northwestern corner of Staten Island and adjacent portions of the Arthur Kill and Kill van Kull.
TOWN: Richmond
COUNTIES: Richmond (NY); Hudson, Union (NJ)
STATES: New Jersey, New York
USGS 7.5 MIN QUADS: Arthur Kill, NY-NJ 40074-52;
Elizabeth, NJ-NY 40074-62
USGS 30x60 MIN QUAD: Newark 40074-E1
III. GENERAL BOUNDARY: The overall boundary of this complex is delineated on the accompanying map and essentially consists of that area bounded by the Kill van Kull and Newark Bay on the north, Fresh Kills and Isle of Meadows on the south, on the west by the Arthur Kill, and on the east by several road systems, including South Avenue, Felton Street, Graham Avenue and Victory Boulevard. The length of the complex, from north to south, is approximately 5 miles (8 km) long and 2 miles (3 km) wide in an east-west direction. Delineated within the general boundary are several individually significant fish, wildlife and plant sites, in addition to extensive interspersed areas of developed lands. These sites, or subareas, are, from north to south: Shooters Island; Arlington; Bridge Creek; Goethals Bridge Pond; Old Place Creek; Graniteville Swamp; Gulfport Marsh; Staten Island Corporate Park; Sawmill Creek Marsh; Pralls Island; Neck Creek Marsh; Fresh Kills; and Isle of Meadows.
IV. OWNERSHIP/PROTECTED STATUS: Ownership of these lands, exclusive of the developed areas contained within the complex, are a mixture of City of New York (Departments of Parks and Recreation, Ports and Trade and Sanitation), State of New York (Department of Environmental Conservation), and privately-owned lands (including Trust for Public Land and numerous private individual and corporate landowners). The New York City Audubon Society has been very active in managing several of the wildlife lands within this complex under cooperative agreements. Although much of the area is unprotected, wetlands are regulated in the State under the State's Freshwater Wetlands Act of 1975 and Tidal Wetlands Act of 1977, in addition to their Federal regulation under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act of 1977 and various Executive Orders.
V. GENERAL HABITAT DESCRIPTION: This complex consists of four major habitat groupings: 1) Colonial Wading Bird Breeding Sites or Rookeries; 2) Wading Bird Foraging Areas; 3) Wooded Swamps; and 4) Upland Forests. The focal points of this complex are the three island rookeries or heronries: Shooters Island, Pralls Island and Isle of Meadows. Shooters Island is an uninhabited bedrock and fill island located in the Kill van Kull at the southern end of Newark Bay, partly in New Jersey and partly in New York. The island is partially wooded with species such as black locust (Robinia pseudo-acacia), tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) and Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). Small patches of salt marsh containing cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and common reed (Phragmites australis) occur around the shoreline, along with scattered debris, rotting docks, abandoned buildings, shipwrecks and barges. Pralls Island, located in the Arthur Kill, was originally a high marsh island over which was dumped dredge spoil, creating a central densely-wooded upland area with tree-of-heaven, gray birch (Betula populifolia) and black cherry (Prunus serotina) ringed by low marsh dominated by saltmarsh cordgrass and common reed. Isle of Meadows, located at the confluence of the Arthur Kill and Fresh Kills, is similar in origin and vegetation to Pralls Island and contains areas of low and high tidal marsh along its northern and western shores.
The main foraging areas of this complex used by nesting colonial wading birds from the three island rookeries are, from north to south: Arlington/Mariners Marsh; Bridge Creek; Goethals Bridge Pond; Old Place Creek; Gulfport Marsh; Sawmill Creek Marsh; Neck Creek Marsh; and Fresh Kills. These areas represent a diversity of wetland habitat types, primarily tidal and non-tidal emergent salt, brackish and fresh marshes, mud flats, ponds and creeks, locally dominated by cordgrasses (Spartina alterniflora and S. patens), spike grass (Distichlis spicata), marsh elder (Iva frutescens), common reed and cattail (Typha latifolia). In addition to vegetated wetland areas, this complex contains extensive interspersed areas of man-made structures, including railroad yards, oil tank farms, bulkheads, docks, road systems, landfills and numerous industrial and residential buildings, both occupied and abandoned.
Graniteville Swamp and Staten Island Corporate Park essentially form the eastern upland edges of the wetland foraging areas identified above. Both contain wooded swamps dominated by sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), red maple (Acer rubrum) and swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor) in addition to a diversity of other wetland communities, including salt marshes, cattail marshes/bogs and small ponds. The Graniteville Swamp area also contains an area of upland forest.
VI. SIGNIFICANCE/UNIQUENESS OF AREA: The primary significance of this area is the presence of major nesting colonies and foraging areas of herons, egrets and ibis in a complex of closely associated natural habitats occurring within a major urban metropolitan area setting. In 1989, these three island colonies, or rookeries, collectively contained over 900 nesting pairs of colonial wading birds of special regional emphasis or management concern, including 416 black-crowned night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), 177 snowy egret (Egretta thula), 180 glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus), 82 cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis), 48 great egret (Casmerodius albus), 8 green-backed heron (Butorides striatus), 4 yellow-crowned night-heron (Nyctanassa violacea), and 2 little blue heron (Egretta caerulea) nesting pairs. In addition, over 1200 herring gull (Larus argentatus) and 60 great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) pairs nested on these same sites. Adult and young herons and egrets forage extensively in the wetlands over this complex, feeding on rich concentrations of fish, including young winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), striped bass (Morone saxatilis) and bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix), and invertebrates in the marshes, flats and shallow waters of ponds and tidal creeks. Nesting waterfowl include American black duck (Anas rubripes), gadwall (A. strepera), mallard (A. platyrhynchos), green-winged teal (A. crecca), blue-winged teal (A. discors), Canada goose (Branta canadensis) and wood duck (Aix sponsa), and also breeding Virginia rail (Rallus limicola), common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), least bittern (Ixobrychus exilis), American coot (Fulica americana) and pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps). The Goethals Bridge Pond is an important feeding area for migratory shorebirds, particularly black-bellied plover (Pluvialis squatarola), red knot (Calidris canutus), pectoral sandpiper (C. melanotos), semipalmated sandpiper (C. pusilla), sanderling (C. alba), common tern (Sterna hirundo) and least tern (S. antillarum). Wintering waterfowl of regional emphasis occurring in the open waters and marshes in this complex include American black duck, canvasback (Aythya valisineria), greater and lesser scaup (Aythya marila and A. affinis), Atlantic brant (Branta bernicla), mallard, bufflehead (Bucephala albeola) and American wigeon (Anas americana). Northern harriers (Circus cyaneus) forage over many of the wetland marshes of this complex, particularly in winter, as did numbers of short-eared owls (Asio flammeus) until the mid-1980's. Interesting and regionally rare southern species occurring in this area include a grove of native persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica) and a population of southern leopard frog (Rana sphenocephala). The swamp and upland forests at Graniteville Swamp and Staten Island Corporate Park are important not only from a biodiversity perspective, including their use by neotropical migrants, but represent some of the few remaining intact forest stands in the general metropolitan area.
VII. THREATS: This unique and regionally significant wetlands and rookery complex is within one of the most intensively industrialized and urbanized corridors in the northeastern United States, and is subject to both physical and qualitative losses of habitat due to chemical (including toxics, heavy metals, DDT and petrochemicals) and nutrient pollution stresses, stormwater and sewage discharges, non-point source runoff, illegal filling and dumping activities, fragmentation and loss of connecting corridors, loss of upland buffers, invasive species, mammalian predators, poorly-planned land and waterfront development, human-related disturbances, and dredging and other changes in channel flows, among other impacts. This area was the site of several recent oil spills and discharges, resulting in wildlife losses.
VIII. CONSERVATION CONSIDERATIONS: Protection of the heron rookeries and wetland foraging areas of this regionally significant habitat complex should be accorded high priority and sought through a multitude of appropriate land protection mechanisms, including cooperative conservation and management agreements, zoning and land-use regulations, easements, land exchanges and, in some cases, acquisition. While many of the aquatic sites and mainland marshes are in public ownership, and primarily in need of resource management rather than acquisition, several of the significant sites are privately owned and may need to be acquired or dealt with through land exchanges to ensure their long-term protection and viability. The area offers an abundance of land and resource conservation opportunities and challenges involving the cooperative efforts of Federal, State and City governments in partnership with private conservation organizations such as the New York City Audubon Society and The Trust for Public Land, and, most importantly, private individual and corporate landowners. Protective measures should be taken, whether by regulation, zoning, planning, cooperative agreements or full-scale restoration programs such as the National Estuary Program, to restore, maintain, enhance and protect the significant aquatic, wetland and upland habitats of this complex to ensure that these areas continue to support the regionally significant populations of waterfowl, fish, and colonial breeding wading birds that utilize and depend upon these habitats.
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