Rookery Bay Community Day Brings Over 1,000 People Together to Celebrate Coastal Connections

On Saturday, May 3, Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve welcomed more than 1,000 community members for the 2025 Rookery Bay Community Day, an event dedicated to celebrating the vibrant connection between people and the coastal environment.

From hands-on science to family-friendly fun, Community Day offered something for everyone. Guests of all ages explored the wonders of the estuary through interactive activities, including touch tanks filled with live invertebrates, kayak demonstrations, shark dissections and a face-painting station that kept the youngest visitors smiling throughout the day. Children participated in an oyster ecosystem exploration activity, uncovering the role oysters play in filtering water and providing habitat. Others observed the feeding of organisms in mangrove ecosystems, which highlighted the complex relationships within coastal food webs.