Every fall, Long Island’s best craft breweries haul their kegs to Islip for a party with an unusual guest list. Bats. Dozens of them, swooping through the evening air while conservationists, nature lovers, and beer drinkers watch from below.
That’s the Bats and Brews fundraiser, the flagship annual event for Seatuck Environmental Association, a Suffolk County nonprofit that has quietly built one of Long Island’s most comprehensive conservation programs since its founding in 1989. The event captures everything Seatuck is trying to do: make environmental stewardship feel like something you actually want to show up for.
The organization is headquartered at the Suffolk County Environmental Center at the Scully Estate in Islip, a setting that fits its mission. Charles D. Webster founded Seatuck in 1989 to continue research already underway near the Seatuck National Wildlife Refuge. But the roots go back even further. In 1968, Webster’s family donated a 200-acre estate to the federal government to create a wildlife and bird sanctuary. That act of generosity, nearly six decades ago, set the course for what Seatuck has become.
Today, the organization works across four areas: conservation, research, advocacy, and education. Its programs touch coastal waterways, bird populations, public schools, and restaurant kitchens.
Yes, restaurant kitchens.
One of Seatuck’s most inventive programs is Half Shells for Habitat, a partnership with local municipalities and restaurants to recycle oyster shells for habitat restoration. Since 2019, nearly 50,000 pounds of shells have been returned to Long Island’s bays, where they give young oysters a surface to attach to and help fight coastal acidification. It’s a closed loop that turns a byproduct most restaurants throw away into something the bay desperately needs.
The Long Island River Revival Project takes a broader view. That program targets coastal rivers and streams across Long Island that have been ecologically degraded, working to rebuild fish populations and restore the natural function of waterways that many residents drive over without a second thought. Healthy rivers don’t fix themselves. Seatuck is doing the work that makes recovery possible.
Bird protection is another front. Long Island’s bird populations have declined significantly over the past several decades, and Seatuck is active on multiple levels: restoring nesting habitat, monitoring population trends, and working to reduce bird deaths from window strikes, a problem that kills an estimated 600 million birds annually across North America, according to Long Island Press coverage of Seatuck’s work. The scale of the issue is staggering, but Seatuck’s approach is local and practical.
The education side runs just as wide. Seatuck offers programs for every age group from preschool outings to adult workshops, connecting Long Islanders with the ecosystems that surround them. The Long Island Natural History Conference brings together scientists, educators, and nature enthusiasts from across the region each year for a gathering that functions as both a research exchange and a community event. It’s the kind of programming that builds the next generation of people who notice when a river runs wrong or a bird population goes quiet.
Seatuck also relies heavily on community scientists, volunteers who contribute time and observation data to the organization’s ongoing research efforts. That model keeps costs manageable and ties residents directly into the conservation process. You don’t have to be a biologist to help count birds or collect shells.
Fundraising runs through donations, event participation, and business partnerships. The Bats and Brews event, held each fall at the Scully Estate in Islip, features craft beer from Long Island breweries, live music, a bonfire, a conservation lecture from an expert, and food from local restaurants. It draws a crowd that might never otherwise engage with conservation programming. That’s the point.
The Seatuck Environmental Association website lets supporters donate directly, sign up for events, and find volunteer opportunities across Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
Nonprofits that try to do too much often end up doing nothing well. Seatuck doesn’t have that problem. In 37 years of operation, it has built a genuinely coherent program connecting habitat restoration, public education, community science, and annual events that people look forward to. The 200-acre donation Webster’s family made in 1968 started a chain of decisions that now protects coastal rivers, restores oyster reefs, tracks bird populations, and fills a field in Islip with people who came for the beer and stayed for the bats.