Robert Lipper, Vineyard
Photo by R. Strovnik Robert Lipper, Couple Strolling on the Beach Robert Lipper NYS Darren McGee, Fishing on Long Island

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday July 12, 2005

JUST OUTSIDE NYC, ECOTOURISM OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND ON LONG ISLAND

Contact:  Kristen Matejka        
Director of Marketing and Communications
LICVB&SC
631 951-3900 xt.317

FROM A SUNKEN FOREST TO A SEAL WATCH CRUISE, ECOTOURISM OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND IN LONG ISLAND, NY

HAUPPAUGE, NY- (July 12, 2005)- Just outside New York City -one of the most populous cities in the nation- Long Island offers visitors an escape from the ordinary.

The Long Island Convention & Visitors Bureau invites visitors to explore a 200-year old Sunken Forest in Fire Island’s ocean dunes; or hike the beachside Long Island Seashore Trail in New York State’s only Federal Wilderness area; or see the rare Dwarf Pines in the Pine Barren region; or the bluff-top hiking trails of the Greenbelt Trail system.
You can get up close and personal with wildlife on a whale watching boat or seal watch cruise, or come see free-roaming deer, a bat conservation site and rare species of birds.

Hiking Trails Like You’ve Never Seen
The Sunken Forest, just behind the dunes of Fire Island’s spectacular beaches, offers visitors the opportunity to feel like a giant in a forest that won’t grow any higher than the sand dunes that protect it from the ocean’s salty wind.

Also on Fire Island, the Long Island Seashore Trail offers ocean views, high dunes and wildlife along the Fire Island barrier beach off Long Island’s south shore. Easy access by ferry or bridge at Smith Point Park.

The Dwarf Pine Plains of the 100,000-acre Pine Barrens region in Eastern Long Island, is one of only three such sites in the world. Here, these stunted trees (in Westhampton) grow in defiance of the sandy white forest floor. The trail information center is located in Manorville. The Pine Barrens area is a protected area featuring over 150 miles of trails and a rare assortment of plant and animal species.

And the Greenbelt Trail on Long Island winds 32 miles through the woods of Connetquot State Park, traveling up to the high sandy bluffs of Sunken Meadow State Park overlooking the waters of Long Island Sound.


Long Island’s Hidden Wild Side
For more natural interaction, visitors can experience life aboard a whale research vessel with the Coastal Research and Educational Society of Long Island out of Montauk Point.  Two day trips are now forming for late summer.

And for bat fanatics, Connetquot State Park is the only designated Bat Conservation Society viewing area in New York State, spring through fall.

Long Island is a bird-watchers delight. The Piping Plover was listed federally as a threatened species, with only 106 pairs nesting here in 1986. Now nearly 400 hundred nesting pairs can be found in places such as Jones Beach State Park and at beaches all along the north and south shores. Or come down to the Nissequogue River State Park in the early evening to see a gathering of the tall-standing, curved-neck egret at the park’s fresh water pond in late summer. The Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center in Oyster Bay is a popular site for bird-watchers, while the Morton national Wildlife Refuge in Noyack attracts terns lingering on its sand bars through September. Long Island is home to over 40 preserves and refuges.

Walking along the winding boardwalk through the dunes of Fire Island at Robert Moses State Park after the summer crowds leave, toward the Fire Island Lighthouse, visitors can view deer and other wild life that roam freely among grass and shrubs behind the beach.
In fact, some of Long Island’s best kept secrets are revealed when the cooler weather sets in and the summer crowds have departed. Long Island is home to a large seal population in the winter, which can be viewed during guided seal walks, or seal watch cruises out of Point Lookout in Nassau County

Long Island also cares for its wildlife through rescue centers, ecology centers and game farms open to the public. The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research offers visitors the opportunity to get up close and personal with wildlife, such as sea turtles and seals being rehabilitated under their care. The Foundation is located at Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, a full-scale aquarium, featuring a newly opened penguin exhibit, and other opportunities to be a “sea lion trainer for the day,” or to “snorkel with the sting rays.”

The Holtsville Ecology Center in Brookhaven features a range of animals, from bears to mountain lions; while the Long Island Game Farm in Manorville features a “Big Cat” show this summer, along with its newest additions: kangaroos.

Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown acts as a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, and also offers beautiful gardens, trails and a live butterfly house.

The Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium features more than sixty species of New York State fresh water fish, and six outdoor rearing pools holding trout in various stages of development. Feeding is permitted.

Come explore the unique opportunities Long Island offers to get back in touch with nature.

The Long Island Convention & Visitors Bureau and Sports Commission (LICVB&SC) was established in 1979 as a marketing arm for the destination’s nearly $5 billion travel and tourism industry. Based on Long Island in Hauppauge, NY, the LICVB&SC contributes to the economic development and quality of life on Long Island by promoting Long Island as a world-class destination and by attracting individuals, tours, meetings and conventions, trade shows, sporting events, related activities and business to Long Island. For more information about Long Island, please contact the Long Island Convention & Visitors Bureau and Sports Commission by calling 1-877-FUN-ON-LI or visit the web site at http://www.funonli.com.

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