Quogue Wildlife Refuge Marks 90th Anniversary With Summer Gala

The Quogue Wildlife Refuge is celebrating its 90th anniversary and will commemorate the historic milestone with the annual “Wild Night for Wildlife” summer gala on Saturday, July 13, to honor its first president and his family’s rich history with conservation.

The gala, which is the refuge’s annual fundraising benefit, will feature members of the Belt-deRopp-Hart-Weinman family in attendance as the refuge honors its first president, Charles Banks Belt.

Belt was one of four co-founders of the refuge when it was established in 1934 as the Southampton Township Wildfowl Association on the property of an old ice farm. Since then, the extended Belt-deRopp-Hart-Weinman family has continued to stay involved with the refuge and continued to support it.

“We were raised out here with this appreciation for the wild spaces, which are becoming fewer and fewer,” said Michael Weinman, Belt’s grandnephew. “We find it really important to continue the support from a physical, emotional and fiscal standpoint. It’s a very special place to our family.”

Located on Old Country Road in Quogue, the refuge features a web of trails that go all around the 305-acre property. While exploring the trails, visitors can see a variety of different environments, including three ponds, Pine Barrens and wetlands, as well as the wildlife that inhabits them, like squirrels and turtles.

At the front of the refuge is the Outdoor Wildlife Complex, which features permanently injured wildlife that the refuge takes care of; visitors can view different types of owls, hawks and birds. The refuge also has a Nature Center that is home to smaller animals and is where many of the programs that the refuge hosts throughout the year are held. The refuge also offers summer programs for kids.

The refuge, now the oldest nature sanctuary on Long Island, was founded with the goal of propagating the local black duck population. Belt and his co-founders were duck hunters who “understood conservation” and wanted to do what they could to help sustain the population, according to Weinman. This was accomplished with an incubator with duck eggs on the second floor of what is now the ice museum building at the refuge.

Zoe deRopp, Belt’s niece, recalled going to that area on the second floor and watching the ducks hatching, which was “fascinating to a little kid about 3 feet high.”

“They wanted to put up two birds for every one they took down,” said Weinman. “It wasn’t pure altruism, but they really understood conservation and had a real eye for prolonging and propagating black ducks, which were becoming less and less prevalent out here.”

Belt’s conservation-minded efforts were not just limited to the refuge. After the Great Hurricane of 1938, which took down thousands of trees on the family’s property on Pine Neck, he and his other co-founders brought in a sawmill to process the trees into lumber to help rebuild areas of Quogue and East Quogue. They also took any “junk timber” down to the beaches to help rebuild the damaged dunes.

Weinman credited Belt’s actions to the family “always sort of having an ethos of minding the land out here and being really thoughtful about trying to do as much as possible while doing nothing to damage the environment.” This was gained through family hunting trips and a year that Belt spent in Canada, where he ran a trap line and learned about the environment.

Now, Belt’s spirit of conservation and respect for local land and animals is still alive and well at the refuge today. The refuge offers over 400 programs each year that are environment-related.

Marisa Nelson, the refuge’s assistant director, said that “our mission is environmental education, along with being stewards of the land.”

The refuge is currently in the process of raising funds to undergo a renovation project of the nature center building located on the old ice pond. Nelson said that the 54-year-old building needs to be renovated in order to host the facility’s growing programs and the number of visitors at the refuge.

“Going forward, we’re really excited about a much-need renovation project to expand and update our Nature Center building to accommodate the growing programming and visitors,” said Nelson.

The refuge now averages 150,000 visitors per year, which also fuels the need for the renovation project. Because of this, the Belt family has pledged to help with the fundraising effort.

“The refuge is at an inflection point, because it’s getting so many visitors that we need to expand it,” said Weinman. “And so, as a family, we’ve chosen to support that capital campaign effort. Three generations down, and we’re continuing to support the refuge, because there aren’t many places like it anymore.”

Though more and more people are visiting the refuge than ever before, Nelson said that the experience remains the same.

“There’s multiple generations of people, and they love to come back,” she said. “And once they’re out on the trails, it still feels like the refuge that they’ve known for years.”

And since admission to the refuge is free, which has been the case for its entire history, Nelson said this provides an opportunity for people to both clear their minds and learn about the local environment when they visit.

“It’s free to park, it’s free to visit, it’s open to everybody to come,” she said. “It’s so people really can appreciate both the peace they find when they visit, as well as learning about the natural world that’s right here.”

For more information about the refuge, its history and the gala, visit quoguewildliferefuge.org.