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Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Review

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Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

Fodor's Review:

Owned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service and NASA, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which adjoins the Canaveral National Seashore, acts as a buffer around Kennedy Space Center, while protecting 500 species of wildlife, including 10 considered federally threatened or endangered. It's an immense area dotted by brackish estuaries and marshes and patches of land consisting of coastal dunes, scrub oaks, pine forests and flatwoods, and palm and oak hammocks. You can borrow field guides and binoculars at the visitor center to track down various types of falcons, ospreys, eagles, turkeys, doves, cuckoos, loons, geese, skimmers, terns, warblers, wrens, thrushes, sparrows, owls, and woodpeckers. A 20-minute video about refuge wildlife and accessibility—only 10,000 acres are developed—can help orient you. You might take a self-guided tour along the 7-mi Black Point Wildlife Drive. The dirt road takes you back in time, where there are no traces of encroaching malls or mankind and it's easy to visualize the tribes who made this their home 7,000 years ago. On the Oak Hammock Foot Trail you can see wintering migratory waterfowl and learn about the plants of a hammock community. If you exit the north end of the refuge, look for the Manatee Observation Area just north of the Haulover Canal (maps are at the visitor center). They usually show up in spring and fall. There are also fishing camps scattered throughout the area. The refuge is closed four days before a shuttle launch.

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