The Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge is a

National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge System is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to c ...

located in McIntosh county in Georgia. The refuge was established to provide a nature and forest preserve for aesthetic and conservation purposes. The refuge is one of seven refuges administered by the Savannah Coastal Refuges Complex in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

. The complex has a combined staff of 31 with the fiscal year 2005 budget of $3,582,000.

History

The name of the island comes from

Edward Teach Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch, – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about ...

, the infamous pirate Blackbeard. There is a

legend A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...

that part of his treasure is buried on the island. There has never been a single

doubloon The doubloon (from Spanish ''doblón'', or "double", i.e. ''double escudo'') was a two-''escudo'' gold coin worth approximately $4 (four Spanish dollars) or 32 '' reales'', and weighing 6.766 grams (0.218 troy ounce) of 22-karat gold (or 0.917 fi ...

found, though. The last hunt took place in the 1880s on the north end of the island. There have been no further authorized attempts since. The land which is currently Blackbeard Island originally came from the Navy Department in 1800 in a

public auction In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

as a source of live oak timber for ship building. The island was then placed under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Biological Survey to be maintained as a preserve and breeding ground for native wildlife and migratory birds in 1924. A presidential proclamation in 1940 changed its designation from Blackbeard Island Reservation to Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Topography

Blackbeard island is accessible only by boat. Transportation to the island is not provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service. A public boat ramp on Harris Neck NWR (Barbour River Landing) may also be used as a launching site for trips to the island.Park Information – Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge
The island consists of interconnecting linear dunes thickly covered by oak/palmetto vegetation. There are approximately of open freshwater or

freshwater marsh A freshwater marsh is a non-tidal, non-forested marsh wetland that contains fresh water, and is continuously or frequently flooded. Freshwater marshes primarily consist of sedges, grasses, and emergent plants. Freshwater marshes are usually found ...

, of regularly flooded

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

, of maritime forest, and of sandy beach.

Wildlife and protected species

The main objective of the refuge is to provide wintering habitat and protection for migratory birds. It is also to provide protection and management for endangered and threatened species such as the loggerhead sea turtle, American

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 as ...

, wood stork, and

piping plover The piping plover (''Charadrius melodus'') is a small sand-colored, sparrow-sized shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange-red legs, a black band across the forehead from e ...

. Notable concentrations 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 in ...

, wading birds,

shorebirds 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">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 mudflat ...

, songbirds, raptors,

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

, and alligators can be seen at various times of the year.

Facilities

There is no visitor center at the refuge.

Parks on the Air

The Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge was activated for

Parks On The Air Parks On The Air (POTA) is an amateur radio operating award program started in 2010 with its nonprofit organization being founded in 2018 that encourages amateur radio operators to operate in a variety of parks and public lands as a portable stati ...

in 2023.

References

External links

Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge
{{Authority control Landforms of McIntosh County, Georgia National Wildlife Refuges in Georgia (U.S. state) Protected areas established in 1924 Protected areas of McIntosh County, Georgia Wetlands of Georgia (U.S. state)