Supporting Coastal Research and Outreach

One of the jewels of Southeastern’s facilities is the Turtle Cove Environmental Research Station. Turtle Cove is an environmental research, education and outreach facility in the Lake Pontchartrain estuarine ecosystem. Located on the southern shore of Pass Manchac on the 8,325 acre Manchac Wildlife Management Area, and accessible only by water, this facility was built in 1908 by Edward Schlieder as a private hunting and fishing lodge and was donated to Southeastern by the Schlieder Foundation. Today, it serves to facilitate scholarly research, university teaching, teacher training, and public service/outreach/restoration activities.

Each year hundreds of university students, K-12 school children and other visitors come to experience wetlands firsthand. With 2,500 feet of walkways that extend over the marsh, visitors experience the true variety of the Manchac Wetlands. Cypress/tupelo swamps, brackish and fresh water marsh, bottom-land hardwood forest and estuarine and riverine aquatic systems are all readily accessible to be studied or just enjoyed. Facility director, Dr. Robert Moreau has been managing Turtle Cove for 12 years. His focus of study and teaching has been in the interdisciplinary environmental studies, primarily in environmental management (i.e., the business, socio-economic-cultural and environment interaction). Turtle Cove has been a natural fit for Dr. Moreau. “This is the kind of scholarship and outreach that universities should seek to accomplish. We teach elementary, high school and university students about our unique native environments and provide for research opportunities among our Southeastern faculty and students, as well as other area universities, to understand how best to mitigate damages to the environment for the long term.”

Turtle Cove is supported by the university and enhanced through the generosity of many individual donors and partnerships. It is yet another element of Southeastern Louisiana University that is sustained with help from supporters and partners.