Blue Goose ~ Day 240

January 22, 2015 ~ Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Fl to Viera, FL

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Jonathan Dickinson (1663–1722) was a Quaker merchant from Port Royal, Jamaica who was shipwrecked on the southeast coast of Florida in 1696, along with his family and the other passengers and crew members of the ship. The party was held captive by Jaega Indians for several days, and then was allowed to travel by small boat and on foot the 230 miles up the coast to Saint Augustine. The party was subjected to harassment and physical abuse at almost every step of the journey to Saint Augustine. Five members of the party died from exposure and starvation on the way.

Hobe Sound NWR wasn't far from the campground and I got there early. The two units of this small refuge protect habitat for nesting sea turtles and a sand scrub remnant, 90% of which has been lost to development. There was a little loop trail that wound through the scrub, down to the sound and then back up to the VC. It was peaceful, quiet and sunny. I saw no one else, nor did I see the bird I was hoping to see: the Florida Scrub Jay, an endemic in the sand scrub habitat.

Hobe Sound NWR - FL

I continued to the first National Wildlife Refuge, Pelican Island, created in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt. Here is the interesting story of one man's passion to protect the birds:

WWW.FWS.GOV

An Immigrant and a President: How Pelican Island became America's first wildlife refuge 

Paul Kroegel, a German immigrant, arrived in Sebastian, Florida in 1881, and homesteaded with his father on an ancient shell midden on the west bank of the Indian River Lagoon. From his home Kroegel would look out to Pelican Island, a five-acre mangrove island where thousands of brown pelicans and other water birds would roost and nest. He took an interest in protecting the island’s birds. Without state or federal laws to protect the birds, Kroegel would sail out to Pelican Island with his gun and stand guard. Kroegel was visited by many influential naturalists who stayed at the nearby Oak Lodge from the 1880s to the early 1900s. One of those naturalists was a well-known ornithologist, Frank Chapman, who was curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a member of the American Ornithologist’s Union. Chapman discovered that Pelican Island was the last rookery from brown pelicans on the East Coast of Florida, and pledged his support to protect the birds. 

In 1901, the American Ornithologist’s Union and the Florida Audubon Society led a successful campaign to pass legislation in Florida calling for the protection of non-game birds. Kroegel was one of four wardens hired by the Florida Audubon Society to protect water birds from market hunters. Two of those wardens were murdered in the line of duty. Chapman and his fellow bird protection advocate, William Dutcher, knew that protecting the birds of Pelican Island required additional protection. Chapman and Dutcher were acquainted with President Theodore Roosevelt, who had assumed the Presidency in 1901. They visited Roosevelt at his home in Sagamore Hill, New York, and appealed to his strong conservation ethic. On March 14, 1903, without fanfare, President Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing Pelican Island as the first federal bird reservation. He would establish a network of 55 bird reservation and national game preserved for wildlife - the forerunner to the national wildlife refuge system. But Pelican Island was the first time that the federal government set aside land for the sake of wildlife.
Paul Kroegel was hired as the first national wildlife refuge manager. He was paid $1 a month by the Florida Audubon Society, as Congress had not set aside funds for this executively created refuge. 

While the threat from plume hunters diminished during the first decade of the 20th century, another threat to Pelican Island's inhabitants emerged. Market fishermen, convinced that their livelihood was being harmed, mistakenly argued that pelicans were eating too much fish and competing with them for a dwindling fishery. This controversy reached a climax in the spring of 1918, when over 400 defenseless pelican chicks were clubbed to death on Pelican Island. The Florida Audubon Society was subsequently able to prove that the bulk of the pelican's diet consisted of commercially unimportant baitfish, thereby defeating an attempt to weaken newly enacted bird protection laws. With his gun, boat and badge, Paul Kroegel stood watch over America’s first national wildlife refuge. But in 1923, the birds abandoned the island after a hurricane. Because of the birds absence, Kroegel was retired from federal service in 1926. Soon after, the pelicans and other water birds returned, but the island remained without a resident warden until the mid 1960s...In 1970, Pelican Island became the smallest wilderness area (six acres) in the National Wilderness Preservation System. 

So, while the refuge is relatively unprepossessing, it has pride of place.  I accessed it via The Jungle Trail, a firmly packed dirt road through dense barrier island flora, sometimes bordering the back yards of homes only barely visible through the thick foliage.

Palm Warbler - Pelican Island NWR - FL

Archie Carr was the third refuge of the day, on a barrier island, and actually a series of properties over 20 miles with the mandate of sea turtle conservation. Approximately 25% of US loggerhead and green sea turtles nest here (15,000 to 20,000) and a smaller number of the larger and more rare leatherbacks. The VC was a beautiful building, on the ocean, with exhibits, educational information and a short boardwalk through the adjacent habitat of red mangroves.

The weather was that perfect combination of blue skies, warm sunshine and ocean that attracts the millions of northerners this time of year, although much of the island route (A1A) here in central Florida goes past discrete high-end gated communities. US1 to the west is the nearly non-stop commercial strip with I95 farther west.

Archie Carr NWR - FL

I could have been in western Michigan in July.

I stayed in Viera, near Merritt Island. The annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival was this weekend, based in Titusville, and I researched what trips they offered and where. Had I know I would be here, I might have signed up for a couple of the events. But I didn't and registration was closed, so I did the next best thing.