Long Cove Project Area
Long Cove is located on the eastern shore of Pleasant Bay which is one of the most important wetland habitats in the State of Maine, providing especially valuable habitat for woodcock, shorebirds and black ducks, a priority species in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service North American Waterfowl Plan.
Long Cove has about three miles of shorefront and 250 acres of intertidal mudflats and fringing salt marsh. Long Creek and the Three Brooks group of streams drain extensive undeveloped uplands including some of the most dramatic granite headlands along the shores of Pleasant Bay. Seavey Point and Hemlock Island guard the cove from southwesterly gales.
Working together, Pleasant River Wildlife Foundation and Maine Coast Heritage Trust have protected several important properties on Long Cove. MCHT holds a conservation easement on the large Three Brooks property and PRWF owns Hemlock and Goose Islands, Long Creek Point and three other properties with frontage on the opposite side of Long Creek.
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Because there has been no residential development to fragment or disturb the cove’s exceptional habitat, wildlife thrives. Biologists have documented 11 species of migratory shorebirds and 16 species of waterfowl, including large numbers of migrating green-winged teal and black ducks, a species of great concern along the Atlantic Flyway. The wetlands have been designated by the State of Maine as:
One of the top Shorebird Areas in the State’s Pleasant Bay Priority Project Area
- High Value Feeding and Roosting Shorebird Habitat
- High Value Tidal Waterfowl and Wading Bird Habitat
Bobcats, coyotes, fishers, black bears, moose and deer inhabit the uplands around the cove. Birds include a pair of nesting bald eagles, ruffed grouse and spruce grouse, woodcock and a host of songbirds and raptors.
The cove’s tidal flats and the adjacent waters of Pleasant Bay support commercially harvestable populations of clams, marine worms, mussels, sea urchins, scallops and lobsters. Pleasant River Wildlife Foundation’s Long Creek Point parcel is a prime public access point for clammers and wormers as well as for canoeists and kayakers.
It is PRWF’s long term plan to protect the entirety of Long Cove thereby avoiding any commercial or residential threat to its wildlife values and assuring visitors the opportunity to experience a particularly peaceful and undisturbed part of Pleasant Bay.
PO Box 154 • Addison • Maine • 04606 
207-518-7793 • info@pleasant-river.org