Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is a

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

National Wildlife Refuge The National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) is a system of protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), an agency within the United States Department of the Interior, Department of the Interi ...

(NWR) on the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

coast of

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

's largest

barrier island Barrier islands are a Coast#Landforms, coastal landform, a type of dune, dune system and sand island, where an area of sand has been formed by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of an ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

and visitor complex are also situated on the island and NASA can restrict access to the refuge based on its operational needs. The NWR contains over 1000 species of plants, 117 species of fish, 68 amphibians and reptiles, 330 birds, and 31 mammal species, of which 21 species are listed as endangered by the state of Florida or by the US federal government. Management of the NWR is provided through the Merritt Island NWR Complex, which provides

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

and driving trails for the public, subject to access restrictions from

. It is a 'gateway site' for the

Great Florida Birding Trail Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail (''GFBWT'') is a 2,000 mile (3200 km) long collection of more than 500 locations in the U.S. state of Florida where the state's bird habitats are protected. The trail promotes birdwatching, environmen ...

Location and extent

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is located due east of Titusville on

Merritt Island Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Florida coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and sout ...

Brevard County, Florida Brevard County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. It is on the Atlantic coast of eastern Central Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county s ...

, and occupies , overlaid with the

. To the north, it borders on the

Canaveral National Seashore The Canaveral National Seashore (CANA) is a National Seashore located between New Smyrna Beach and Titusville, Florida, in Volusia and Brevard Counties. The park, located on a barrier island, was created on January 3, 1975, by an act of Cong ...

; to the south it encompasses non-public portions of the Kennedy Space Center (with which it also shares some history), which in turn abuts

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

Mosquito Lagoon Mosquito Lagoon is a body of water located on the east coast of Florida in Brevard County, Florida, Brevard and Volusia County, Florida, Volusia counties. It is part of the Indian River Lagoon system and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It exte ...

and the Indian River run through the refuge. Since public access to all these areas is controlled in various ways, the refuge is part of a very substantial area of relatively undisturbed wildlife habitat.

History

The land occupied by the NWR was acquired by

in the early 1960s for the development of the Space Center and its non-operational purposes. Until then, there had been little development in the area because of the high number of salt marsh

mosquitoes Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by '' mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, ...

. Public access is normally permitted, and several

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either Route number, numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered ...

s run across the refuge. However, the public can be excluded if necessary for NASA's purposes, as is done in the days before a launch.

Habitats and species

The refuge provides a range of habitats, from saltwater

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

and freshwater impoundments and

marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

es, to

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

hammocks A hammock, from Spanish , borrowed from Taíno and Arawak , is a sling made of fabric, rope, or netting, suspended between two or more points, used for swinging, sleeping, or resting. It normally consists of one or more cloth panels, or a wov ...

, and scrub. It contains over 1000 species of plants, 117 species of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

, 68

amphibia Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniotic, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all tetrapods, but excluding the amniotes (tetrapods with an amniotic ...

ns and

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

s, 330

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s, and 31

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

species. Of these species, 21 are listed as

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

either by the state of Florida or by the US federal government. The following are some of the more important species using the refuge; most of them nest there: *

Sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...

s including **

Loggerhead sea turtle The loggerhead sea turtle (''Caretta caretta'') is a species of sea turtle, oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the Family (biology), family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around ...

Green turtle The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exte ...

* American alligator *

Osprey The osprey (; ''Pandion haliaetus''), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and a wingspan of . It ...

Bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...

*Many species of

waterfowl Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which i ...

use the refuge as a wintering ground;

blue-winged teal The blue-winged teal (''Spatula discors'') is a species of bird in the duck, goose, and swan family Anatidae. One of the smaller members of the dabbling duck group, it occurs in North America, where it breeds from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia, ...

and

northern shoveler The northern shoveler (; ''Spatula clypeata''), known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and throughout the Palearctic and across most of North America, and winters in southe ...

are resident in small numbers *Many species of

shorebird 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

s, some resident and some using the refuge in the course of their

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

*Several species of

rails Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters * Railway track or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' (1967 fi ...

Anhinga The anhinga (; ''Anhinga anhinga''), sometimes called snakebird, darter, American darter, or water turkey, is a water bird of the warmer parts of the Americas. The word ''anhinga'' comes from ''a'ñinga'' in the Brazilian Tupi language and means ...

*Several species of

heron Herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 75 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genus ''Botaurus'' are referred to as bi ...

and

egret Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...

Glossy Gloss is an optical property which indicates how well a surface reflects light in a specular (mirror-like) direction. It is one of the important parameters that are used to describe the visual appearance of an object. Other categories of visual a ...

and

white ibis White ibis may refer to several birds: * American white ibis, ''Eudocimus albus'' * Australian white ibis, ''Threskiornis molucca'' ** Solomons white ibis or Solomon Islands white ibis, ''Threskiornis (molucca) pygmaeus'' * Asiatic white ibis, an al ...

Roseate spoonbill The roseate spoonbill (''Platalea ajaja'') is a social wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, Threskiornithidae. It is a resident breeder in both South and North America. The roseate spoonbill's pink color is diet-derived, consisting of ...

Florida scrub jay The Florida scrub jay (''Aphelocoma coerulescens'') is one of the species of scrub jay native to North America. It is the only species of bird endemic to the U.S. state of Florida and one of only 15 species endemic to the continental United Stat ...

West Indian manatee The West Indian manatee (''Trichechus manatus''), also known as the North American manatee, is a large, aquatic mammal native to warm coastal areas of the Caribbean, from the Eastern United States to northern Brazil. Living alone or in herds, it ...

Bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus '' Lynx''. Native to North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the c ...

Dwarf siren Dwarf sirens are eel-like salamanders of the genus ''Pseudobranchus''. Dwarf sirens possess external gills throughout adulthood and lack hind legs, and can be distinguished from members of the genus '' Siren'' in that dwarf sirens have three toes ...

, a recently discovered

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

Facilities

Subject to the needs of NASA, public access is relatively unrestricted, though it is only allowed during daylight hours;

camping Camping is a form of outdoor recreation or outdoor education involving overnight stays with a basic temporary shelter such as a tent. Camping can also include a recreational vehicle, sheltered cabins, a permanent tent, a shelter such as a Bivy bag ...

is only allowed for certain organized

youth organization The following is a list of youth organizations. A youth organization is a type of organization with a focus upon providing activities and socialization for Minor (law), minors. In this list, most organizations are international unless noted othe ...

s. The refuge provides

and driving trails for visitors, with opportunities for observing wildlife without causing disturbances; most of the species listed above can be seen by a casual visitor. An observation deck is provided near the

drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable b ...

that carries State Road 3 over the

Haulover Canal The Haulover Canal is a waterway north of Merritt Island, Florida, near the former site of Allenhurst, that connects Mosquito Lagoon with the Indian River, and is part of the Intracoastal Waterway. In the early 1960s there were plans to relocat ...

, in the northern part of the refuge, since manatees frequently congregate there. Boating is permitted on the waters around and within the refuge, and provides an opportunity for observing the wildlife. There are facilities for launching pleasure boats at several places. In addition the refuge includes, and gives access to Playalinda Beach on the outer barrier island.

Fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

is generally permitted, and

hunting Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...

for wildfowl is allowed on a strictly limited basis. There is a Visitor Center.

Management

Merritt Island NWR Complex acted as an administrative center for a number of other NWR's in central Florida but since 2012 management of the ''Merritt Island NWR'', St. Johns National Wildlife Refuge, and

Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge The Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, located in north central Florida, twenty-five miles west of Daytona Beach, off U.S. Highway 17 in DeLeon Springs. Description The refug ...

are administered by the ''Merritt Island NWR Complex'' located on SR 402, 5 miles east of

Titusville, Florida Titusville is a city in and the county seat of Brevard County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 48,789, up from 43,761 at the 2010 census. Titusville is located along the ...

. The

Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge The Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System, located in four separated areas on the Lake Wales Ridge east of US 27 between Davenport and Sebring in Florida. The 1,194 acre ...

Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), and part of the Everglades Headwaters NWR complex, located just off the western coast of Orchid Island, Florida in the Indian River Lagoon east of Sebast ...

Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge The Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System, located along a twenty-mile (30 km) section of coastline from Melbourne Beach to Wabasso Beach, Florida, along State Road A1A. T ...

, and the

Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area The Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area, created in 2012, is the newest addition and 556th unit of the United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System. It began with donated to the conservation effort as p ...

are administered by the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge Complex. headquartered in

Vero Beach, Florida Vero Beach is a city in and the county seat of Indian River County, Florida, United States. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,354. Nicknamed "The Hibiscus City", Vero is situated about south ...

. Water levels are controlled in most of the refuge, to conserve its range of habitats. Controlled fires are used regularly.

Roads in the refuge

Black Point Wildlife Drive is a one-way seven-mile dike road allowing wildlife viewing of the refugeFWS: Black Point wildlife drive
Retrieved 2017-12-25

Kennedy Parkway

Kennedy Parkway traverses the John F. Kennedy Space Center and the refuge. In the John F. Kennedy Space Center, it is long with a divided highway. North of Beach Road, it is two lanes wide. In total, it is long, from the southern border of the Space Center to U.S. 1, near Oak Hill. North of Dummit Grove, it forms the western boundary of the Canaveral National Seashore.

References

External links

Official websiteMerritt Island YouTube link
{{authority control Merritt Island, Florida National Wildlife Refuges in Florida Protected areas established in 1963 Protected areas of Brevard County, Florida Wetlands of Florida Landforms of Brevard County, Florida 1963 establishments in Florida Marshes of the United States