Location: Brown County
Area Protected: 31 Acres

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Harbor Lights Preserve is located in Suamico, Brown County, WI. It protects extensive wetlands that filter water, provide spawning habitat for Northern Pike and a stopover site for many birds. This property will be open to the public for hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking, and bird watching. Wetlands of lower Green Bay have been dramatically diminished and degraded by developments, wetland fills, hydrologic disruptions, pollution, and the spread of aggressive invasive species. Remaining wetlands, like the Harbor Lights Preserve, will continue to provide significant habitat for migratory and resident birds and fish. The acquisition of these 31 acres of forested wetlands and cattail marsh will protect this impor­tant and integral component of the productive wetland remnants in Brown County.

Harbor Lights Preserve includes a ten acre cattail marsh with a small pond that is a breeding site for waterfowl and an important stopover for land, shore and waterfowl birds. A creek on the South end of the property has had Northern Pike habitat restoration work completed by Brown County Land and Water Conservation Department, which provides fish with the ability to reach the property for spawning in springtime. There is a continually flooded portion of the property that drains to Barkhausen Creek through a ditch.

Harbor Lights Preserve protects a Land Legacy Place (Green Bay West Shore Wetlands), and a critical component of the Green Bay West Shores Wildlife Area – a Conservation Opportunity Area (COA), for which no other protection options were available. This is a hard-working wetland that is performing important ecosystem services like retaining and controlling flood waters, absorbing nutrients and chemicals from the water and storing them like a natural filtration system.

Please feel free to visit. You can park on the road near the sign, and make sure you bring your boots.