Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, National Wildlife Refuge in Sebastian, Florida, US.

Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is a 3-acre island with about 2.5 acres of surrounding water in the Indian River Lagoon, off the western coast of Orchid Island east of Sebastian, Florida. The island itself holds nesting brown pelicans, egrets and other water birds, while the wider refuge adds mangrove islands and submerged lands. Visitors view it from a 1/4-mile boardwalk and an 18-foot observation tower on the mainland.

Theodore Roosevelt declared the island the first National Wildlife Refuge in the United States in 1903 to protect birds from extinction through commercial feather hunting. This decision became the starting point for a nationwide system of refuges that today includes more than 560 locations.

The refuge is named for the brown pelicans that nest on the island. Frank Chapman, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, found it was one of the last rookeries of brown pelicans on Florida's east coast. Visitors can view the birds from a quarter-mile boardwalk and an 18-foot observation tower, but landing on the island is not allowed.

Two 2.5-mile foot trails loop through the salt marsh impoundments, and a quarter-mile boardwalk leads to an 18-foot observation tower facing the island. Visitors cannot land on Pelican Island, since nesting birds are easily disturbed. The boardwalk, tower, interpretive signs, kiosks, restrooms and parking opened on March 14, 2003.

Paul Kroegel, a German immigrant who settled on the lagoon's west bank in 1881, sailed out to stand guard over the nesting birds himself because no state or federal law protected them. After Roosevelt's 1903 order he stayed on as the refuge's first manager until 1926, paid $1 a month by the Audubon Society because Congress had made no provision for the post.