The Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge is part of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

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 ...

(NWR) System, located offshore from

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The refuge was established in 1905 by President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

to preserve nesting colonies of native seabirds and wading birds. The Passage Key Wilderness Area is part of the refuge, and consists of (or 56.9%) of its total area. It was established in 1970, to protect native birds and serve as a breeding ground for them.

Management

''Passage Key NWR'' is one of the three 'Tampa Bay Refuges', and was administered as a part of the

Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge The Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, located on the west coast of Florida, about north of St. Petersburg. It is famous as the southern wintering site for the re-introduced eas ...

Complex but was changed to the

Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge The Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System, located in Kings Bay, in the town of Crystal River, and consists of 20 islands and several small parcels of land. The refuge (only a ...

Complex. The complex manages the

Pinellas National Wildlife Refuge The Pinellas National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System, located offshore from mainland St. Petersburg, Florida, and only accessible by boat. The refuge was established in 1951, to act as a bree ...

, ''Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge'', ''Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge'', Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge, and the ''Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge''.

Disappearing island

''Passage Key'' has suffered substantial shoaling in recent years and is currently reduced to a small sandbar approximately long at high tide. It began in 1921 with a hurricane that destroyed a freshwater lake and most of the vegetation. The island, first known as ''Isla de San Francisco y Leon'', then ''Burnaby Island'', and later as ''Cayo del Pasaje'' or ''Passage Key'', was a barrier island teeming with

laughing gull The laughing gull (''Leucophaeus atricilla'') is a medium-sized gull of North and South America. Named for its laugh-like call, it is an opportunistic omnivore and scavenger. It breeds in large colonies mostly along the Atlantic coast of North Am ...

royal tern The royal tern (''Thalasseus maximus'') is a tern in the family Laridae. The species is endemic to the Americas, though strays have been identified in Europe.Buckley, P. A. and F. G. Buckley (2020). Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus), version 1.0. ...

black skimmer The black skimmer (''Rynchops niger'') is a tern-like seabird, one of three similar birds species in the skimmer genus ''Rynchops'' in the gull family Laridae. It breeds in North and South America. Northern populations winter in the warmer water ...

sandwich tern The Sandwich tern (''Thalasseus sandvicensis'') is a tern in the family Laridae. It is very closely related to the lesser crested tern (''T. bengalensis''), Chinese crested tern (''T. bernsteini''), Cabot's tern (''T. acuflavidus''), and elegan ...

brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mout ...

s and

oystercatcher The oystercatchers are a group of waders forming the family Haematopodidae, which has a single genus, ''Haematopus''. They are found on coasts worldwide apart from the polar regions and some tropical regions of Africa and South East Asia. The e ...

s. The hurricanes of 2005 reduced the island to the current state that must be saved or allowed to disappear. Since then, the refuge is closed to all public use.

References

External links

Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge
{{authority control Protected areas of Manatee County, Florida National Wildlife Refuges in Florida Protected areas established in 1905 1905 establishments in Florida