Nature

The newest nature preserve in the state of Ohio is located in Mentor, right on the shores of Lake Erie. The 450-acre Mentor Lagoons Nature Preserve & Marina was purchased by the City of Mentor in 1997 and 1998 in order to save the property from a proposed private development.

 

The nature preserve includes one and one half miles of shoreline with rare dune plants, a riverine marsh, mature oak bluff and crescent-shaped open waterways. Containing the greatest diversity of wetland communities within the marsh basin, it serves as an important breeding and nursery area for fish and waterfowl and provides a resting place for neo-tropical birds and butterflies as they migrate each year.

 

The Mentor Lagoons wetlands are some of the few riverine marshes still surviving along Lake Erie’s shore; the uplands support the largest unbroken bluff forest in northeast Ohio. Below the forest is a one half-mile stretch of one of the finest coastal dune communities in Ohio. Together, the dunes and beach support two species of plants listed on Ohio’s threatened list and five potentially threatened species of plants, as well as a highly diverse wildlife community. Over 150 species of birds have been recorded, making this site one of the top birding locations in the region.