If you’ve ever taken Interstate 5 toward downtown San Diego, chances are that you’ve seen the last remaining 1% of coastal wetlands in Mission Bay. Home to a variety of unique ecosystems that act as critical habitats for local endangered species and harbor significance to San Diego’s Kumeyaay peoples, the Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve contains 21 acres of tidal mudflats, salt marshes, eelgrass beds, and coastal sage scrub — a fraction of the 4,000 acres it used to be 75 years ago. 

Co-hosted by the UC San Diego Natural Reserve System, San Diego Bird Alliance, city of San Diego, and the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, Love Your Wetlands Day, which took place this year on Feb. 1, is an annual opportunity to explore the protected marsh. The event offers a variety of activities, including kayaking, bird-watching, building indigenous Kumeyaay tule boats, and free coloring books for children.

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Photo by Erin Huang

“[The activities are] all a thing we don’t get to do very often — that we don’t do often enough,” said Andrew Meyer, director of conservation at San Diego Bird Alliance. The non-profit was one of 40 environmental organizations that attended Love Your Wetlands Day 2025. 

“I think it’s really exciting to see the different organizations that are doing wetland work here,” Julia Lowe, a UCSD graduate student, said. “So many more people come out than I expect, which is really fun.”

One organization in attendance this year was Mujeres en Parvada (Women in Flock), a women’s bird-watching collective. Founding member Celik Bernise served as one of the guides during the bird-watching activity.

“It is a way to create awareness among the population to care more and more for these natural places that are fast disappearing,” she said.

Ridgway’s rail is an endangered species that calls Kendall-Frost Marsh its home; it is a famously secretive bird that spends most of its life concealed in the dense vegetation of the marsh. The ReWild Mission Bay program, a project of the San Diego Bird Alliance, builds small wooden structures that act as nesting baskets for these endangered birds. 

“I jokingly call them the love shacks,” said Beth Besom, designer of the Ridgway rail nesting baskets. “It’s sort of the natural process of giving the birds the closest thing to what we took. What they would have had originally.”

In its prime, Mission Bay was a 4,000-acre marshland fed by the San Diego River. During the late 1940s, dredging and filling operations converted the marshland into a tourist attraction and recreational center. 

“Conservation and climate action takes all kinds of people all across the spectrum,” said Zachary Billot, a California Climate Action Corps fellow with San Diego Bird Alliance. “The more people that speak up, the easier it is for the work to get done.”

Marshlands play several crucial roles in our environment, from filtering water for downstream areas to absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In the face of climate change, these wetlands are more important now than ever, as they significantly reduce the severity of flooding by absorbing water during heavy rainfall and act as natural barriers against coastal erosion. 

The space also facilitates a reconnection with the city’s indigenous Kumeyaay people. 

“Our Kumeyaay partners are willing to share that important cultural connection,” Meyer said. “Through restoring this kind of habitat, we can literally get the opportunity to grow tule, bring it to the marsh, launch it in, and get that reconnection opportunity.” 

The growth of tule in Mission Bay has become increasingly uncommon, limiting the Kumeyaay people’s opportunity to build traditional boats and launch them back into the bay. On Love Your Wetlands Day, the public has the opportunity to help build these boats made of tule, the indigenous name for a tall reed that grows in freshwater marshes all over California. 

Those interested in getting involved with conservation efforts in San Diego can look forward to Love Your Wetlands Day 2026 to experience hand-on learning and a connection to this important habitat. The event is a chance to learn about the importance of coastal wetlands, the climate threats they face, and how local communities are working to restore and protect them. 

“I think, honestly, getting children out here and involved is really important,” said Grace Constation, an undergraduate student at UCSD. “I’m a screenager myself, and my sister’s 13, and she’s a screenager, and I’m trying to get her outside and connected with nature more. It’s just such a fun way to learn, and a fun way to experience the world.”