The Lenape Farms Restoration Project at Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area is located in Atlantic County, New Jersey. The property contains over 5,000 acres of woodlands, agricultural areas and wetlands in Atlantic County’s Great Egg Harbor watershed. The restoration sites, prior to the project, were a combination of agricultural production land and degraded wetlands dominated by invasive plant species. The Lenape Farms Wetlands Restoration Project (LFWRP) was designed, approved, and constructed to mitigate past permitted freshwater wetlands impacts. The Project was funded by the New Jersey Wetlands Mitigation Council using In Lieu Fees.
The project restored 17 acres of habitat in three separate areas across the site. The primary goal was to restore, create, and enhance tidal freshwater wetlands, vernal pools, and upland habitat to enhance the ecological value of the property as an addition to New Jersey’s Wildlife Management Area system. Other goals and objectives included removing invasive exotic plant species to re-establish native wetland and upland plant communities, and restoring threatened and endangered wildlife, fish and aquatic habitat within restoration areas, across the property and within nearby wetlands and waters improving habitat connectivity with neighboring Wildlife Management Areas. This project was completed in 2016. In the years of monitoring at the site since completion of construction, a variety of wildlife have been documented utilizing the newly created habitat including the state threatened Pine Barrens Tree Frog and Spotted Turtles.