Tijuana River Estuary
301 Caspian Way, Imperial Beach, CA 91932
In 1971, local biologists Joy Zedler and Paul Jorgensen, along with Mike McCoy, a wildlife veterinarian, began to organize local environmentalists and Imperial Beach residents to build government and public support for the estuary’s preservation. After three decades of proposals by developers, court cases, and federal intervention, in 2005 the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve was designated as a “wetland of international importance” by the United Nations’ convention on wetlands.
The reserve encompasses beach, dune, mudflat, salt marsh, riparian, coastal sage scrub, and upland habitats surrounded by Tijuana, Imperial Beach, and San Diego.