Meadow Restoration:
The Barbara Barnes Hale Preserve

The Barbara Barnes Hale Preserve is a 17-acre parcel on the west side of Accabonac Harbor, accessible from Springs-Fireplace Road near its intersection with Hog Creek Road. The property was acquired in 2000 by a joint effort of Suffolk County and the Town of East Hampton, with help from The Nature Conservancy and what is now Group for the East End, after some 15 years of lobbying by the APC and others. The parcel was subsequently designated a town Nature Preserve, named—at the request of the APC—after Barbara Barnes Hale, a Springs naturalist and educator who passed away in 2003.

Like much of the environs of Accabonac Harbor, the Barbara Barnes Hale Preserve traditionally had been maintained as a meadow by animal grazing and annual mowing with a sickle bar. By the time it was acquired by the county and town, however, many years had passed since cattle or horses had grazed the land or the parcel had been cleared; it was on its way to becoming a forest, threatening not only a unique and historic vista of Accabonac but also a habitat that has become increasingly rare. Once home to meadowlarks, killdeer, upland sandpipers, grasshopper sparrows, visiting glossy ibis, hunting kestrels, quail, pheasant and numerous other animal and plant species, the meadow gradually has been overwhelmed by shrubs and trees, many of them non-native.

APC has persuaded the Town Board to agree that restoration and maintenance as a meadow is the best use of the Barbara Barnes Hale Preserve. As of July 2007, the Natural Resources Department director, Larry Penny, had applied to the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation for the permits necessary to begin clearing of the parcel.  We are hopeful that the work might actually begin in the fall of 2007.