Seneca Bluffs

The Seneca Bluffs Natural Habitat Park is located near the Seneca Street Bridge, between Elk Street and Avon Place.
It consists of approximately 15 acres of riparian floodplain located in a heavily urbanized area along the Buffalo River.
Historically, the site had mixed use including farming.
Seneca Bluffs was identified in 1994 as one of five unique and critical habitat areas in need of protection.
The site provides habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna, and is part of a larger wildlife corridor along the river.
Seneca Bluffs is also to become part of the future Buffalo River Greenway Trail.
Seneca Bluffs also is less than 2 miles from Tifft Nature Preserve and is located within the Great Lakes migratory bird flyway.
Habitat types include a floodplain island, seasonally flooded wetland, forested floodplain, upland meadow, and 2500 linear feet of shoreline.
A large diversity of migratory birds, wading birds, and waterfowl make use of the site.
Problems include the domination of~85% of the site by invasive and non-native plants and areas of the shoreline are actively eroding.
Initial habitat restoration activities were completed by Erie County DEP in 2004 which consisted of: debris removal and site re-grading, installation of a native warm season grass meadow, upland riparian, seasonal aquatic depression, and installation of a gravel trail and a parking area.
Additional restoration projects were completed in 2017 to include invasive species removal of Knotweed and Phragmities.
The banks along the river were also modified using bioengineering techniques to combat erosion.
This park is a great place to launch small paddle craft! There is a large parking lot and a new playground on site.