At this stage in the game, we all know (or should know) that the environmental preservation rests in our actions.
Perhaps the best local example of this understanding is at the South Fork Natural History Museum & Nature Center, located in Bridgehampton, the only state-of-the-art natural history museum in the Hamptons. For nearly 40 years, the museum has been deeply rooted in environmental education, consistently offering year-round explorative and engaging science-based programming and events to folks of all ages.
The museum was founded in 1988 by seven local naturalists who realized the importance of nature education at the grassroots level. A year after its founding, it became a nonprofit. In its early stages SoFo, as it’s known locally, operated out of a nature clubhouse on Bluff Road in Amagansett behind the home of Andy Sabin, current president of the museum’s board of directors and one of its founders. Back then, the museum was a spot for kids to hang out, inspect seashells, watch butterflies and track the travel patterns of small amphibians. People could stop by with flowers and plant they needed help identifying. It was a unique place for exploration and discovery. It was fun, too.
By 1999, the museum’s expanding (and enthusiastic) membership had outgrown its tiny location and the founders sought to purchase a 3-acre parcel set along the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike adjacent to a dormant vineyard and the 1,100-acre Long Pond Greenbelt Preserve. A $5 million construction project that started in 2001 culminated in a 6,400-square-foot museum and nature center that opened in 2005.
“A lot of people come to this museum knowing more about what’s around the world than what’s right here on the South Fork,” says SoFo executive director Frank Quevedo. “What makes this site extremely special and unique is that we’re a gateway to the Long Pond Greenbelt Preserve right behind the museum. This gives us an opportunity to take groups out there and interpret it.”
It also creates enthusiastic environmental stewards. While the expansive grounds — including the neighboring Greenbelt and 40 acre-meadow known as Vineyard Field Preserve — lend themselves to outdoor education through guided nature walks and programs (of which SoFo collectively hosts about 250 each year), as well as interpretive research, the interior of the museum is equally impressive and informative.
Armed with a small but knowledgeable staff, all of whom have a background in environmental sciences, SoFo boasts several indoor exhibits relating to natural flora and fauna found across the South Fork. Highlights include a marine touch tank containing live shellfish and echinoderms; terrariums; aquariums; and scientifically accurate galleries featuring live and replicated natural habitats.
“One of our specialties is to keep the animals that we have here as ambassadors to teach our visitors,” Quevedo says.
Case in point, SoFo’s shark science research program’s team of shark scientists and marine biologists work during the summer to tag sharks with sophisticated satellite tags to monitor and track their behaviors and movements through Long Island’s South Shore, which has been confirmed to be a white shark nursery. SoFo also tracks eastern tiger salamanders, an endangered species for which a scientific tracking initiative was developed.
“We’re obtaining the data that’s extremely necessary, not just for interpreting information to the public but providing that data to the scientific community,” Quevedo says. “You’re not going to protect what you don’t know, right?”
SoFo is located at 377 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton and is open to the public every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Museum admission is $10 for adults; $7 for children ages 3 to 12); and free for members and children 2 and under. For more information, visit sofo.org.
