
Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T!
Sandy Hook in New Jersey is one of Gateway National Recreation Area’s three geographical units. The other two are in Staten Island and Queens, with the three parks framing the ‘gateway’ to New York Harbor.
The Sandy Hook Foundation, the park’s non-profit partner, helped fund the documentary embedded below (from the same filmmaker as the Piping Plover video.) Local documentarian Jeff Gould produced The Ospreys of Sandy Hook to showcase the success story of the osprey’s recovery from near-extinction in the 1960s era of DDT. Efforts to help the Osprey continue today through community and NPS efforts. This week, the Gateway ospreys are expected to return to the park from their winter homes in South America.
Location: 85 Mercer Rd, Highlands, NJ 07732
Designation: National Recreation Area
Date designation declared: 10/27/1972
Date of my visit: March 2016

A gateway Sandy Hook beach day…
🙂
Interesting. California’s brown pelican was almost wiped out by DDT. I didn’t know that the osprey shared a similar fate. It is so exciting and rewarding to see the success of these populations increasing. We now have a bald eagle nesting about a half of mile from where we live and condors are soon to be reintroduced to our region. Thanks for sharing. –Curt
And I didn’t know about the pelicans! I saw so many last time I was in Northern California. Our eagle population is thriving as well. Good news!
It’s good to be reminded of those good stories!
Yes!