Saugus Site Overview

Site Overview  

Wheelabrator’s Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary is an outstanding example of cooperative efforts between industry and the environment. From it’s inception, Wheelabrator has viewed the sanctuary as an opportunity to provide for the needs of the communities with which they fostered a 25 year relationship. The resulting project has brought forth a balance between he needs of industry while enhancing wildlife benefits and increasing the public access to vanishing habitats.

The Bear Creek site is a 340-acre property abutting a 1,300 acre estuary on the outskirts of Boston, which is being transformed into migration and breeding habitat for more than 20 endangered, threatened or special concern bird species. The ultimate project goal is to create one of the largest bird migration staging areas on the North Shore.

In addition to its environmental purposes, the Sanctuary also provides access to the public as the restored habitats continue to develop. Visitors can enjoy the more than 14,000 feet of walking trails that permeate the site, a half-acre exhibit garden, and meeting and lecture areas which are scattered though out nine of the restored ecosystems. Wheelabrator has also partnered with North Shore Community College, and Essex Agricultural and Technical High School to offer high-level educational resources.

This facility is comprised of three contiguous properties all owned by divisions of Wheelabrator Technologies. Primarily surrounded by coastal salt marsh, the entire facility is located within the Rumney Marshes Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), ad designated by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) in 1998. Bound to the south by the Pines River and to the east by Bear Creek and the Saugus River, the site developed and maintains numerous specific native habitats to attract targeted wildlife species.

Some of these habitats include:

• Abandoned Orhard
• Atlantic White Cedar Bog
• Coastal Rangeland
• Coastal Shrubland
• Coastal Woodland
• Early Succession Forest
• Mixed Pine Stand
• Old Field Habitat
• Red Maple Swamp
• Salt Marsh
• Wet Meadow
• Wet Wooded Swale
• Wildflower Swale
• Wooded Island

Through its design and implementation, the modest sanctuary originally envisioned for the site is evolving into what may one day become the largest migratory bird staging area on the north shore.