Our Natural Heritage

Driving down the wide picturesque Main Street of Old Saybrook, a town defined by its ties to the water, it is hard to imagine that the whole region was actually once under water. Old Saybrook's landscape was most influenced by continental glaciers, the most recent of which moved south across Connecticut approximately 22,000 years ago. Ice thickness in the Old Saybrook area is thought to have been about 1,800 feet, or 1/3 of a mile. Since the 1970s Connecticut has restored over 1,500 acres of wetlands, most of which was supervised by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP's Long Island Sound license plate program, which features the familiar Outer Lighthouse at the mouth of the Connecticut River, has funded a multitude of projects to improve the Sound's quality of life and to educate people about this important natural resource.

The Connecticut River In 1998 President Clinton designated the entire Connecticut River from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound as one of 14 "American Heritage Rivers" in the United States. The mouth of the Connecticut River is a mile-wide estuary protected by a large, shallow sandbar. The impact of constantly shifting sandbar locations on deep-draft ship navigation is one of a number of reasons that no significant industrial development has occurred along the banks of the lower river from Old Saybrook north to Deep River.

In 1994 the Connecticut River estuary and tidal wetlands complex, from the mouth of the river to a point above Middletown, was identified under the International Ramsar Convention Treaty as a "Wetland of International Importance," one of only 15 such designations in the entire United States. In 1993 the Nature Conservancy designated the tidelands, including the wetlands of North and South Coves, as one of 40 biologically important ecosystems in the western hemisphere, known as the "Last Great Places." Sharing the Waterways The lower Connecticut River and Valley has many beautiful places to visit and enjoy nature.

Osprey, Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Piping Plovers, Diamond-Backed Terrapins and River Otters are commonly seen. The national symbol, the Bald Eagle, is a winter visitor whose numbers are increasing. There are several places from which to launch a canoe, kayak or motor-driven vessel.

The largest state-owned launching spot is under the Baldwin Bridge on Ferry Road, Old Saybrook. As always, we ask that you please respect our wildlife and observe from a careful distance. Some good land-side observation areas are at the DEP headquarters on Ferry Road in Old Lyme and Saybrook Point at the end of College Street in Old Saybrook.

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