Nantucket Barrier Beach and Wildlife Refuge Receives National Natural Landmark Designation

The National Park Service recently announced a 606th National Natural Landmark: Nantucket Barrier Beach and Wildlife Refuge. 

The special designation recognizes the 1,600 acre refuge located on the north side of the island, at the very tip of the Coskata-Coatue Peninsula, known to locals as the Haulover-Coskata-Coatue-Great Point area. The refuge protects Nantucket Harbor and the town from wave action and allows “our vitally important eel grass beds to grow and host our world-famous bay scallops,” the Nantucket Conservation Foundation (NCF) wrote on social media. 

“The multiple salt marshes along the refuge aid in coastal resilience in the face of climate change and sea level rise,” NCF said. “The rolling dunes and beaches provide shelter and nesting habitat for thousands of colonial waterbirds and migrating shorebirds every year.” 

The refuge showcases two unique geological landforms: a series of cuspate spits — which refers to the curved projections of the beach within Nantucket Harbor; and a cuspate foreland — the curved part of the beach open to the ocean.

“The rhythmic series of symmetrical cuspate spits are easily the best organized and formed among any in the Atlantic Coastal Plain,” according to the National Park Service website. “They also persist in nearly pristine condition, maintaining their sweeping natural form.”

Coatue’s cuspate foreland, also known as Great Point, is about 6.5 miles long, and represents the largest cuspate foreland in the Outer Lands portion of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, NPS said. The barrier beach is mostly free from engineering and development, according to NPS, and erosion and accretion along the shoreline are allowed to follow their natural patterns and processes. 

Nantucket Barrier Beach and Wildlife Refuge also provides habitat for numerous rare plant and animal species, such as shrubs, tidal salt marshes, and nesting sites for piping plovers. 

The newly-designated National Natural Landmark is owned and maintained by the Trustees of Reservations, Nantucket Conservation Foundation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The designation was announced by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on December 19. 

Haaland said in a statement that the Nantucket Barrier Beach and Wildlife Refuge “holds immense value to scientists and nature lovers alike, and its designation as a National Natural Landmark will help to preserve and protect this unique ecological diversity for generations to come.”

According to the National Park Service, landscapes are chosen for this recognition because of their “outstanding condition, illustrative character, rarity, diversity, and value to science and education.” 

Other National Natural Landmarks in Massachusetts include Muskeget Island, the Gay Head Cliffs, Acushnet Cedar Swamp, Bartholomew’s Cobble, Cold River Virgin Forest, Fannie Stebbins Refuge, Hawley Bog, Lynnfield Marsh, Mt. Greylock Old Growth Spruce, North and South Rivers, and Poutwater Pond. 

Read more about Nantucket Barrier Beach here.