San Diego National Wildife Refuge Complex, South San Diego Bay NWR

South Bay
A unit of the San Diego Bay NWR

The South Bay Unit, dedicated in June of 1999, was the dream of San Diego's environmental community for over 20 years. With 90 to 100 % of submerged lands, intertidal mudflats, and salt marshes eliminated in the north and central Bay, the new South Bay refuge will preserve and restore the remaining wetlands, mudflats and eel grass beds to ensure that the bay's thousands of migrating and resident shorebirds and waterfowl will survive into the next century. The approved refuge boundary is 3,940 acres.

The bay supports numerous endangered and threatened species of plants and animals and is a vital link to other wildlife areas. Rare eel grass beds, thousands of resident and over-wintering waterfowl, seabirds, shorebirds and the largest contiguous mud-flat in southern California make this refuge a supermarket for avifauna, and an important stop on the Pacific Flyway.

Visitors can bird-watch from several vantage points, walk and/or ride bicycles along a bike path bordering a good portion of the south bay from Coronado to Imperial Beach. Please call 619-575-2704 for more information and directions.

Click on a photo below to view a large image (Photos by Phil Roullard)

Elegant Terns

Egrets on South Bay

Gull Billed tern

. Where wildlife comes naturally!