Conference House natural area

Located at the southernmost point of New York State, this park houses four historic buildings that trace the history of the borough over the course of three centuries and also acknowledge the importance of this site as a gathering place for Lenape and other Algonquian peoples in the time before colonization and displacement. The park has coastal bluffs that provide habitat for cliff-nesting birds, freshwater and brackish wetlands, and coastal forest. Restoration work and extensive tree planting helped the forest recover from disturbance after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Among other wildlife in the park, every May and June, horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) emerge from the Arthur Kill and Raritan Bay onto the beaches of Conference House Park. The horseshoe crab has been around since before the dinosaurs, roughly 1.2 billion years, and is referred to as a “living fossil.” Female horseshoe crabs arrive on the beaches to lay their eggs, with their male counterparts grasped onto the back of the female’s shell. Two weeks later the eggs are ready to hatch and the water sweeps the newborns into the sea. The thousands of protein-rich eggs provide a feast for hungry migrating birds, which can eat enough to double or even triple their body weight before moving on.

Starting in late June, visitors to the south-facing shorelines of Conference House Park can often enjoy a glimpse of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) as they travel through the city. Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed (Asclepiadaceae) plants and then die, entrusting their offspring to fend for themselves. As the larvae gorge themselves on the milkweed leaves, they accumulate the milkweed’s toxic cardiac glycosides and become poisonous to birds and other predators. Monarch butterflies from New York City begin migration in September and travel as much as 2,100 miles to reach their winter destination in central Mexico, in the state of Michoacan, by the end of October.