Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center is a great place to start exploring the state's largest salt marsh by foot or canoe. The center provides a variety of guided and self-guided walks and canoe tours as well as exhibits, a nature trail, canoe rentals and a Maine Audubon Nature Store. An aquarium, mounted birds and mammals, and interactive exhibits are also featured at the center. All guided programs are led by trained naturalists.

Owned and managed by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the 3,100 acre estuary known as Scarborough Marsh is the largest salt marsh in the state, comprising tidal marsh, salt creeks, freshwater marsh and uplands. The marsh is particularly important for wildlife as a resting, breeding and feeding ground.

There’s plenty to do!

-Watch the shorebirds feeding in the marsh.

-Rent a canoe or launch your own.

-Join a canoe tour led by Audubon naturalists.

-Discover the marsh on your own through natural history displays and a self-guided nature trail. (en Francais)

-Go to one of many natural history programs for all ages throughout the summer.

-Shop at the Maine Audubon Nature Store for books, toys, Maine-made gifts and bird-feeding and optic equipment.

-Try out our hands-on activities and displays for all ages.

Learn about more programs and events at Scarborough Marsh >>

Habitat

Scarborough Marsh provides critical habitat for a broad array of wildlife, particularly birds. Waterfowl, egrets, herons, glossy ibis and many species of shorebirds depend on this rich ecosystem for food, a place to rest during migration and, in some cases, nesting habitat. The marsh is also an excellent spot to find a number of grassland songbirds not commonly found in other parts of Maine, as well as various birds of prey that hunt in the marsh throughout the year. Muskrat, mink, otter, and deer also frequent the wetland.
History

Scarborough Marsh has a long history of human use. Sokokis Indians hunted, trapped, clammed and fished on the wetland. When European settlers arrived in the 1600s, they harvested the salt hay as fodder for cattle and sheep and used the marsh as summer pasture. The 19th century saw increased ditching, filling of pannes and the introduction of tidal gates, which prevent the tide from flooding portions of the marsh. Channels were dug to allow boats built inland to float through the marsh out to sea.

When haying declined in the 1900s, people began to view marshes as sacrifice areas for airports or cheap space on which to fill and build. Scarborough Marsh was even proposed as a site for the town dump.

Recognizing that a significant coastal wildlife habitat was threatened, in 1957 the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife began the twenty-year process of acquiring the marsh. In 1972 Maine Audubon initiated a partnership with the state to convert into a nature center an old clam shack at the edge of the marsh.

Today, Scarborough Marsh is a livelihood for clam diggers, a classroom for schoolchildren, a laboratory for biologists, prime territory for fishermen and hunters and a fascinating, ever-changing world for naturalists, especially birders. Every spring and summer more than 10,000 people begin their journey into the marsh at Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center.