Click here to read an article about Protecting Coastal Wetlands
Click here to take the Wetlands quiz.
Click here to take a walk through wetlands.
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| About 916,000 acres, or 19% of New Jersey, is wetlands, which seems like a lot; but the bad news is that about 40% of the original 1,500,000 acres has been lost to dredging and filling, dams, farming, development and highways. | There are many types of wetlands, including swamps and ponds (Above, left), cattail marshes (Above, right) and temporary wetlands. |
 When these sites are destroyed by development, the rainwater must be diverted somewhere and detention basins are built. They are a poor substitute for wetlands. |
 Students prepare to construct a classroom wetland using plants that are cultivated in farmed wetlands (Onions and celery). In North Jersey, these altered wetlands are called "muck-farms." |
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| Ponds and open water gradually fill in and over time, many become marshes (Wetlands with grasses) or swamps (Wetlands with trees). | When wetlands are filled for houses, many valuable species of plants and animals lose habitat. Also, wetland trees like the bald cypress and willow remove water much faster than grass, so the soil stays wet if it becomes lawn. |
 Building structures on wetlands is unwise because the water will continue to saturate the soil and weaken the building's foundation and roads, or cause many other problems. |
 Sour gum trees and the soggy lawns, indicate this was a swampy area before the house was built. Seasonal ponds like this once supported frogs and salamanders. |
 Looks are deceiving. The purple loosestrife is a non-native and invasive garden plant that thrives in freshwater wetlands and crowds out native plants. |
 Dodder, a parasitic plant that lacks chlorophyll, entwines itself throughout this stand of loosestrife. |
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Most of our wetlands (67%) are palustrine or freshwater wetlands. Trees in swamps have to spread their shallow roots out because the soil is too wet for deep roots and they would be deprived of oxygen. Note the squat, buttressed shape of this tree, which lowers its center of gravity and helps it stay upright in the wet soil. Many roads are built across wetlands and flood during rainstorms. (Below) |
About 33% of our wetlands are estuarine and saltwater like the wetlands at Sandy Hook. Salt marshes are the most productive ecosystems on earth. Below the surface, seagrass beds are important nurseries for fish and invertebrates. Perhaps 80% of our coastal fish rely on tidal marshes. Building on the coast destroys wetlands and the natural buffer between the land and sea. (Below) |
 Don't build here! Signs of neaby wetlands. |
 Left to do their job, wetlands absorb flood waters and protect property. |
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Forty percent of our wetlands are deciduous swamps (Below) and the rest are mainly evergreen swamps (12%) or (Above) shrub-scrub wetlands, farmed areas and wet meadows (15%). Although New Jersey has strong wetlands protection laws, wetlands are still destroyed by road construction and other public and private projects; and runoff from developed areas damages wetlands and affects wildlife. |
Isolated wetlands that dry out in the summer cannot support fishes. These areas, sometimes called vernal pools, are one of the few safe places where frogs and salamanders can lay their eggs. Before wetlands protection laws, NJ lost more than 15,000 acres each year. Since laws were enacted, the loss is down to about 200 acres each year, but there are additional losses from illegal filling, sedimentation from runoff and many other human activities. |
 You can help protect wetlands by participating in clean-ups with environmental groups and controlling litter and runoff into them. |
 You can also help wetlands by learning more about them and their protection, and alerting your town whenever wetlands might be disturbed. |
 Wetlands are identified by their soil type, plant species and hydrology. In addition, there are some typical animals in the leaf litter and soil like these worms and a pill bug. (Right) |
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 Many native wetlands plants are used as landscape stock, like Winterberry (Above) and ornaments like Ground Pine (Left) |
 Peter Berle, President of the National Audubon Society, congratulating Dave Grant for his work for them in wetlands protection. |
 Dave Grant welcomes to Sandy Hook a fellow Audubon Conservation Award winner, the Jersey Shore's favorite congressman, Frank Pallone. |