History of Audubon Island

BAY COUNTY, FL - Bay County Audubon Society has a long history with Bird Island. Our members worked many years with Federal and State agencies to take nesting materials there every spring. One year we carried a boatload of tree branches and motored out to the Island. On the trip, Brown Pelicans would swoop in and grab branches held aloft by the volunteers. So amazing! Laughing Gulls, various Heron species, and Pigeons also nest where there is room on the island. Audubon Island is a regional treasure that some feel needs to be safeguarded. 

Audubon Island, also called Bird Island or Pelican Island, is a man-made spoil island located beside the Port of Panama City. It is believed that it resulted from dredging the port to allow large ships to be built during WWII. It has served as a nesting place for Brown Pelicans, Egrets, and several other species. At one point, the island was the only place Pelicans nested between Mobile, Alabama, and Cedar Key. Bay County Audubon partnered with the Florida Fish and Game Commission (now the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in managing the island. Around 1978, BCAS constructed multiple wooden nesting platforms for the Pelicans. After only a few years, the platforms were destroyed by a hurricane. Over the years, the size of the island has decreased considerably but it has been somewhat stabilized with concrete and stone riprap. Audubon resisted a plan to add more dredged spoil to the island to make it larger because of possible contaminants in the sand at the port resulting from the ship construction and later ship demolition between the 1940s through the 1960s. 

The photo in this article was taken by Neil on a field trip to the island in the 1990s but, to the best of our knowledge, improvements or additions of fill to the island have not been continued. Another visit and reassessment of Bird Island is needed to determine whether or not routine maintenance of this small patch of "land" could better serve our Pelican population. If the outcome of the assessment is positive, our chapter should consider seeking collaborators to restore this patch of land. Perhaps some of our readers can add additional historical and current perspectives on the status of Audubon Island. 

*This article is an opinion piece with contributions from Neil Lamb and Ron Houser and edited by Norm Capra.