Nature preserve opens on former duck farm in Aquebogue

The waters in Terry Creek glistened in the late morning sun as an osprey swooped down to hunt. Above, an egret preened on a branch while a red-tailed hawk soared and screeched.

Wildlife is teeming in the 100-acre Broad Cove property in Aquebogue, which officially opened as a public nature preserve earlier this month after a three-year renovation. The former duck farm was once eyed for a 500-room resort before the Peconic Land Trust bought the land for $11.5 million in 2021. The nonprofit, which focuses on conservation, is remediating and improving public access to the site.

"The birders are the most excited about this. They just love it,” said Matt Swain, vice president of the Peconic Land Trust. "It’s got all different habitats.”

Land trust officials recently completed a $100,000 project to install a gravel driveway, parking area and signage to welcome visitors and improve safety over a railroad crossing.

Now, hikers and dog walkers can explore the grounds along existing paths while plans for a more extensive trail network get underway. Visitors are urged to use tick and insect repellent and avoid tall, grassy areas.

Remediating the property

The trust is spending $450,000, including a $150,000 grant from the Peconic Estuary Partnership, to implement its management plan for the property, which includes tidal wetlands, meadows and forests. Key priorities include swapping invasive plants for native species to restore habitat and building trails, Swain said.

Ultimately, the trust envisions an approximately 5-mile loop trail connecting the forest and wetlands with catwalks, bridges and lookout points over Flanders Bay, as well as spots to launch kayaks. The preserve has about 8,000 feet of shoreline, officials said.

At the edge of the water, visitors are also encouraged to participate in a citizen science initiative led by the Peconic Baykeeper by placing their cellphones in a wood cradle, snapping a photo of the creek and uploading it. The project is a way to visually track coastal changes throughout the Peconic Estuary.

Jessie McSwane, senior stewardship manager at the land trust, said one important factor in trail building is accessibility, adding the topography is already quite flat.

"So it’s just a matter of getting the right materials so that the path is sturdy enough for wheelchairs and people who need support walking strollers,” McSwane said.

The land trust also plans to install educational signage on sea level rise, habitat, ecology and the history of the site in both English and Spanish.

"That way more people, not just kids but adults as well, are aware of what we’re standing on and how they can help protect it,” McSwane said.

About two dozen structures were removed from the property as part of the remediation, Swain said. The crumbling buildings — a machine shop, concrete processing plant and brooding barns — were remnants of the Broad Cove Duck Farm owned by Joseph Celic Sr. until the 1970s.

Joyce Novak, executive director at the Peconic Estuary Partnership, said improving water quality in the western part of the estuary is crucial. Terry Creek and Meetinghouse Creek, nearby, are considered impaired by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

“That tends to be areas that had former agricultural operations that in the '70s and '80s didn’t run as effectively as they do today,” Novak said. “We’re still seeing that legacy pollution.” 

Once the site of a duck farm

Broad Cove was once one of about 90 duck farms in Suffolk County, an industry that peaked in the 1960s producing 7.5 million ducks per year, according to a county report. Celic helped organize the Riverhead Duck Processing Cooperative and processed about 750,000 ducks at the height of his farm, according to his granddaughter Susan Holden, of Orient.

Holden, 61, cherishes memories of summers spent at her Pop’s farm and beach bungalow in Jamesport.

"As a child growing up, that was my whole world, those two miles on the bay,” she recalled recently.

Duck farms began vanishing in the 1970s, as farmers gave into development pressure and struggled to adapt to stricter environmental regulations for waste. Long Island’s last remaining duck farm, Crescent, is around the corner from Broad Cove in Aquebogue.

"The idea that 50 years later, the farm is going to be a park is just such a wonderful thing for the community and for the memory of our grandfather and our family,” Holden said.

Land trust officials said preservation of the land can help improve water quality in the area.

The property had been zoned as a tourism/resort campus, and in 2016 developers pitched a 500-unit resort and spa for the property. The proposal ultimately failed.

Swain said intense development and septic systems at the site could have worsened nitrogen pollution in the bay, leading to harmful algae blooms. The acquisition will also boost climate resiliency along the shoreline.

"It would take the brunt of storm surges,” he said. "It’s a massive buffer.”