Texas Monthly – August 2019

The Marsh Unit

at Sea Rim State

Park in May.

ar away from the cares of urban life, discover a seaside refuge bursting

with life,” says Texas Parks and Wildlife’s interpretive guide to Sea Rim

State Park. “Bursting with life,” absolutely: the park is home to (or rest

stop for) an awesome collection of critters, from neotropical birds and

bobcats to coyotes and alligators. And they’ve got the “refuge” part down.

The whole swath of coastal plain between the Louisiana state line and

the Bolivar Peninsula is one giant patchwork of wildlife sanctuaries, not

just Sea Rim but also the J.D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area as

well as the Anahuac, McFaddin, and Texas Point national wildlife refuges. But I’m not sure

about the “far away” part. That vast acreage of beach and marshland feels almost like a defi ant

bulwark against some very particular cares of urban life uncomfortably close at hand , name-

ly one of the largest petrochemical complexes in the world squatting ominously between

land and sea and everywhere wind-and-water-battered structures, relics of storms come

and gone. The overall impression is one of a delicate habitat occupied by delicate creatures

hanging on for dear life. ¶ You can’t get to Sea Rim, a little over a hundred miles from Houston,

without passing through a cluster of refi neries, their intricate mazes of pipes looking like

roller coasters and their smokestacks expelling what you could almost convince yourself

Sea Rim State Park off ers quiet coastland, abundant wildlife, and a fragile kind of magic.

Marsh Mellow

F

22 TEXAS MONTHLY

PARKS AND RECS

TRAVEL

& OUTDOORS

by Courtney Bond (^) • photographs by Nick Simonite