The marsh has a large seasonal population of waterfowl and other birds, making it a popular destination for birdwatching and hunting during migrations.

One of the first written accounts of the Magee Marsh area came from Samuel Brown, a soldier in the War of 1812, who described large flocks of waterfowl that would be "worth a journey of five hundred miles just to see them".

White settlement in the swampy regions of Northwest Ohio accelerated in the 1850s, and the marshes along Lake Erie were largely turned into private hunting clubs.

The state of Ohio bought the marshland in 1951 to create the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area.

[2][3] Magee Marsh was one of the sites chosen to reintroduce the Canada goose to Ohio in the 1960s.