Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge

Pinckney Island NWR, established December 4, 1975, was once included in the plantation of Major General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Pinckney was a Revolutionary War veteran, delegate to the Constitutional Convention and two-time presidential candidate in the early 1800s. Few traces of the island's plantation exist today. From 1937 to 1975, when it was donated to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pinckney Island was privately owned and managed as a game preserve. 

The 4,053 acre refuge includes Pinckney Island, Corn Island, Big and Little Harry Islands, Buzzard Island and numerous small hammocks. Pinckney is the largest of the islands and the only one open to the public. Two-thirds of the refuge consists of salt marsh and tidal creeks. A wide variety of land types are found on Pinckney Island alone: salt marsh, forestland, brushland, fallow fields, and freshwater ponds. These habitats support a diversity of bird and plant life. Wildlife commonly observed on Pinckney Island includes waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, raptors, neo-tropical migrants, white-tailed deer and American alligators. There are large concentrations of white ibis, herons, and egrets.