WILDLIFE & CONSERVATION
Key West National Wildlife Refuge
Monroe County · South Florida & the Keys
A refuge of nearly a hundred and ninety thousand acres west of Key West, of which barely two thousand is dry land.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Theodore Roosevelt established it in 1908 to stop the killing of birds for the hat trade, the first refuge in the Florida Keys and one of the earliest in the country. The land is twenty-six islands in the Mule Keys and the Marquesas Keys, all unpopulated and all designated wilderness. More than two hundred and fifty bird species use it, among them terns, frigatebirds, ospreys and great white herons, and the sand flats around the islands are feeding ground for wading birds. The beaches are nesting ground for Atlantic green, loggerhead and hawksbill turtles, and this is the only place in the United States where the endangered hawksbill breeds, though fewer than fifty nests are found in a normal year. There is no visitor center and the refuge is reached only by boat. Some beaches are open in daylight for wildlife watching and photography; parts of Woman Key and Boca Grande Key are closed. It is administered from Big Pine Key
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