• Established: 1924 as a bird refuge and as an experiment station for the acclimatization of certain foreign game birds.
• Acres: 5,618 (1,163 freshwater impoundments/marsh; 2,000 saltwater marsh; 2,115 pine and oak forests; and 340 sand beach).
• Location: McIntosh County, Georgia, five miles north of Eulonia, GA, then six miles east on Harris Neck Road, then 18 miles southeast by boat.
• Federal ownership since 1800, first by Department of Navy, then Fish and Wildlife Service
• 1880-1910: served as South Atlantic Quarantine Station.
• Established as a wildlife preserve in 1924 and formally a national wildlife refuge in 1940.
• Wilderness area consisting of 3,000 acres designated in 1975.
• Notable concentrations of waterfowl, wading birds, shorebirds, songbirds, raptors, deer and alligators.

Financial Impact of the Refuge

• Over 11,000 visitors annually.
• Blackbeard Island NWR is part of a seven-refuge complex that has an annual budget of $3,434,000 (FY 2006) and a combined staff of 29, two of which are assigned to this refuge part-time.

Refuge Objectives

• Provide wintering habitat and protection for migratory birds.
• Provide protection and habitat to promote resident and migratory wildlife diversity.
• Provide protection and management for endangered and threatened plant and animal species (loggerhead sea turtle, American bald eagle, American alligator, wood stork, piping plover).
• Provide environmental education, interpretation and recreational opportunities to the visiting public.

Management Tools

• Water level management for waterfowl, shorebirds, wood storks and wading birds.
• Mowing/discing.
• Prescribed fire.
• Mechanical/chemical control of noxious plants.
• Public hunting for deer population management.
• Education/Interpretation.
• Law enforcement.
• Partnerships.

Public Use Opportunities

• Hiking/biking/trails.
• Wildlife observation and photography
• Hunting
• Fishing/shrimping/crabbing
• Environmental education/interpretation
• Sea kayaking
• Daytime beach use