The juxtaposition is startling. Bald eagles nest within sight of Launch Complex 39, where Apollo missions departed for the Moon and Space Shuttles climbed toward orbit. Loggerhead and green sea turtles drag themselves onto beaches just miles from where Falcon rockets land on their tail fins. West Indian manatees gather at the Haulover Canal drawbridge, surfacing in waters that carry the distant rumble of engine tests. The refuge and the space center are not merely neighbors -- they are overlaid on the same land, their boundaries woven together. NASA retains the authority to close public access before launches, and on those days the wildlife has the island entirely to itself.

The refuge spans a remarkable range of ecosystems compressed into a single barrier island. Saltwater estuaries give way to freshwater impoundments and marshes. Coastal dunes transition into hardwood hammocks and Florida scrub. Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River thread through the property, connecting brackish and freshwater worlds. This habitat diversity drives the extraordinary species count: 117 species of fish, 68 amphibians and reptiles, 31 mammals, and those 330 bird species that make the refuge a gateway site for the Great Florida Birding Trail. The endangered Florida scrub jay, found nowhere outside the state, maintains a population here. Bobcats pad through palmetto understory. The dwarf siren, a recently discovered salamander, makes its home in the refuge's wetlands.

The best way to see the refuge is at the pace of a slow-moving car or a pair of walking boots. Black Point Wildlife Drive follows a one-way, seven-mile dike road through the heart of the refuge, with marshes spreading out on both sides and wading birds stationed like sentinels at every turn. Herons, egrets, glossy ibis, white ibis, and roseate spoonbills are common sights, their silhouettes reflected in still water. Ospreys work the shallows. American alligators bask on the dike edges. Hiking and driving trails extend through other sections of the refuge, and an observation deck near the Haulover Canal offers a reliable vantage point for watching manatees. The refuge also provides access to Playalinda Beach on the outer barrier island, a stretch of undeveloped Atlantic shoreline that feels a world apart from the launchpads just down the road.

Merritt Island sits along the Atlantic Flyway, and the refuge functions as a critical rest stop for migratory birds moving between their breeding grounds in the north and wintering territory in the Caribbean and South America. Blue-winged teal and northern shoveler overwinter here in small numbers, but the real spectacle comes during migration peaks when shorebirds arrive in waves -- some resident, others pausing only briefly before continuing south. Rails, anhingas, and multiple species of waterfowl fill the impoundments. The refuge's managers control water levels across much of the property to maintain this diversity of habitats, and prescribed burns are used regularly to keep the scrub and hammock ecosystems healthy. It is active, hands-on conservation made possible by the unusual circumstance of sharing an island with a federal space agency.