Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge

Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge
Beaufort County
February 25, 2023

Southern Regional Director: Tom Austin
Meet at: 32.2339, -80.7785

Pinckney Island NWR was donated to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1975 to be managed exclusively as a national wildlife refuge and as a nature and forest preserve for aesthetic and conservation purposes.

As detailed on the NWR’s webpage:

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.

So far USFWS lists 721 documented species on the property. eBird shows the hotspot as having 258 bird species and iNaturalist reports 429 species. There are numerous impoundments and ponds, a beach overlooking Port Royal Sound, and extensive maritime and bottomland forest communities.

More information can be found about the NWR here:
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/pinckney-island/about-us

The USFWS has a pretty good PDF trail map available here and screenshotted below:
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Trail-Map-Pinckney-Island-NWR.pdf

There are no restrooms on the NWR. There is a single, roughly 3.8 mile, paved/gravel road running along principally the western edge of the NWR. There are extensive walking trails running through the rest of the NWR. Vehicles are not allowed on the pave/gravel road.

We’ll meet at 10:30am at the Pinckney Island NWR parking area (32.2339, -80.7785). Turn north off of Hwy-278 to enter the NWR and the parking area will be on the other side of the first causeway on the right after about a half-mile.

From Jerry Bright: “Pinckney Island NWR maintains over 14 miles of gravel road and grass trails that provide visitors access to all parts of the refuge and are perfect for bicycling. In fact, due to the linear nature of Pinckney’s main road, bicycling is a very efficient way to get the most out of your visit.”

Tom Austin