Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge

It is a nesting, feeding, and cover area for birds and fish, including the endangered light-footed clapper rails and Belding's Savannah sparrow.

There are three "arms" stretching out of the land (used by the military in the past) planted with native vegetation today to support and shelter upland birds, especially during high tides.

Between 1954 and 1956, the Service made several additional proposals to the Navy for managing its lands including raising food crops to support waterfowl.

This cooperative plan for 600 acres of tidal marsh on Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach (NWSSB) was approved in 1964 through a three-way agreement among the Navy, the Service, and the California Department of Fish and Game.

Through the efforts of Congressman Hosmer, President Nixon signed Public Law 92-408 in August 1972, authorizing the establishment of a National Wildlife Refuge on the NWSSB.

The red foxes were killed because they put a significant threat to two endangered species of birds, light-footed clapper rail and the California least tern.

Even though an animal rights group had requested an injunction to prohibit trapping and maiming the foxes at the refuge, a U.S District Judge refused to grant it.

The elevated levels of cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc, all poisonous heavy metals, were found in dead California least terns and light-footed clapper rails.

They found that a construction by the Port of Long Beach that has raised the volume and velocity of the bay water flowing into the refuge.

The toxic materials affect the birds with altered growth patterns, reduced survival, loss of appetite, lethargy, difficulty in reproducing, and even death.

This study mainly focuses on previously color-banded least tern chicks' nesting behavior in Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.

[11] In March 2011, Draft Comprehensive Conservation Plan/Environmental Assessment (CCP/EA) was established to "describes and evaluates various alternatives for managing Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge (NWR).

"[12] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Night aerial view of Seal Beach, California , and vicinity, from the south. The large dark rectangle is the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach , and the dark blob that extends it to the coast is the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. In the lower right, the dark area separated from the ocean by the lighted California Highway 1 is the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach .