Louisiana’s wetlands are vanishing, threatening a haven for migrating birds

Share Add Us On Google Add as a preferred source on Google PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La. ( InvestigateTV ) — At the first sign of some potential threat, goose necks stretch in unison before the sky fills with a blizzard of white and black wings. In one of North America’s great migrations, snow geese and ducks descend on the south Louisiana delta by the hundreds of thousands, most often in places far from city life. One of the busiest migration spots is near the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Bird’s Foot Delta. “When you come to the Bird’s Foot Delta, this is the terminal end of the Mississippi Flyway in North America,” said Todd Baker, a wildlife biologist and project manager for the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. “This time of year, you get birds from Canada, the Arctic, all over North America, migrate down to the mouth of the river,” Baker said. In the winter months, birds journey down the Mississippi Flyway, a migratory superhighway for more than 300 species. Annual surveys estimate 3 million snow geese choose Louisiana and Texas for their wintertime retreats. “You can look over your shoulder and see something at every turn,” Baker said. Yet no place on the continental U.S. loses wetlands at the rate Louisiana is shedding its coast. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates, on average, Louisiana loses the equivalent of a football field of land every 90 minutes. Historic shipping channel now unusable Baker steers down Pass-a-Loutre, one of three main arteries running from the river to the Gulf. “This used to be the original navigation channel for the state of Louisiana, for the Mississippi River,” Baker said. “For commercial traffic (today), it’s pretty much unusable. Recreational boating still gets out here.” Over time, the channel silted in, partly from material the Army Corps dredges and deposits to keep the modern channel open for shipping. “Anytime you cut the river off from its marshes, it goes into retreat pretty quick and this is a pretty fluid example of that right in front of you,” Baker said. “The river doesn’t make it out here anymore; the sediment doesn’t make it out here anymore. So, it’s starting to retreat.” Lighthouse tells story of land loss For decades, the Pass-a-Loutre Lighthouse guided mariners home. The lighthouse had stood in that spot since 1855, until Hurricane Katrina bulldozed over the area and decapitated the structure. Baker said what has been dubbed “the loneliest lighthouse” was situated about a mile or so inland 25 years ago. Today, it is isolated several hundred feet offshore. Five years after the hurricane, a man-made disaster inflicted more harm. The Macondo oil well blowout belched millions of gallons of oil for 87 days until crews finally capped it. “BP had a tremendous impact on this landscape,” Baker said. “This is the closest landmass to the oil spill. It was the first land mass hit by the oil spill, and it was hit multiple times. And it’s very difficult to get out here. So, cleanup was pretty slow. The impacts were pretty severe.” The wetlands surrendered more land after the spill. “The oil spill greatly sped up the rate of erosion down here, leading to the loss of a lot of the property,” Baker said. Southwestern Louisiana also faces land loss Other parts of Louisiana’s coast face their own challenges. A similar population explosion plays out southeast of Lake Charles in the marshes of the Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge . The Rockefeller family donated the 86,000-acre refuge to Louisiana over a century ago. Today, 70,000 acres remain. And during some years, the Gulf chews away 300 feet of beach. “The outlook for the future is trying to maintain what we have,” said refuge manager Scooter Trosclair. In several phases, the state has installed shoreline protection, which has stopped some of the bleeding. Trosclair said they are like “farmers of the marsh.” There are 52 large structures that control water levels and salinity, providing an added bonus of flood protection for populated areas to the north. “Is it going to prevent all flooding? No, but it’s going to get water out quicker,” Trosclair said. Trosclair explained that lowering water levels to just the right depth makes the water shallow enough for birds to feed. A series of hurricanes over the last couple decades walloped the surrounding area and the Rockefeller Refuge. They’re in the process of repairing the damage. “With all these water control structures, levee systems, it’s taken 100 years to build this,” Trosclair said. “And so, here we’re basically trying to rebuild all this infrastructure in a few years. So, it’s going to be a challenge.” Wildlife Viewing Area Southwestern Louisiana also offers some of the best opportunities to see birds up close, including a three-mile driving loop in the Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge, southeast of Lake Charles. The Lacassine Pool Wildlife Drive takes motorists along the perimeter of a 16,000-acre freshwater impoundment. Common species in the fall and winter include gadwall, American wigeon, mallard, mottled duck, blue-winged teal, northern shoveler, northern pintail, green-winged teal, ring‑necked duck, lesser scaup and ruddy duck. Hydrologic Restoration Project Near Pass-a-Loutre, Baker pushes an idea to buy these wetlands some time. The Bird’s Foot Delta Hydrologic Restoration Project would dredge Pass-a-Loutre, South Pass, Southeast Pass and a small portion of the Pilottown anchorage. According to Baker, dredging the anchorage -- a natural pinch point in the river -- would open the river channel a bit more to allow more sediment to flow. “We’re just going to open it up and get that sediment pumping back out to the marshes and let it build,” Baker said. Contractors would dredge two-thirds of the channel in Pass-a-Loutre, sucking 16 million cubic yards of sediment from the river, the equivalent of 3½ Superdomes of sand and dirt. “It’s going to clean out Pass-a-Loutre, clean out South Pass and let Mother Nature build marsh like it used to out here,” Baker said. The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which still must apply for federal and state permits, hopes to fund the $176 million project with settlement money from the 2010 oil spill. Navigation interests generally support the concept but have raised questions about how the Corps and the state would handle the possible buildup of sand in the channel downstream of the project. Sending more water down Pass-a-Loutre would slow the flow in the main Mississippi River channel, allowing for shoaling to occur. The state estimates the project would result in only a 2 percent increase in sand buildup in Southwest Pass and would also decrease sediment buildup north of the project. Baker also concedes there are doubters, who question whether the rapidly sinking delta is doomed to future sea level rise and subsidence. “So, we get that a lot of times. Why bother? Well, this is a habitat that’s unique to North America,” Baker said. “We don’t have a delta like this anywhere else in North America. So, to go with that line of thinking, we’re saying it’s OK to take that ecosystem and say it’s functionally extinct. We’re not going to do anything anymore.” If Mother Nature had her way, the river would have shifted course long ago. “We, as human beings, have locked this system into where it’s at,” Baker said. “So, it’s not a natural system anymore.” Rather than abandon the delta, he argued, “it’s important to preserve that habitat where we have it.” Copyright 2026 Gray Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.