Culebra National Wildlife Refuge

Roosevelt designated this stretch of the Caribbean in 1909 — the first federal wildlife reserve in the region. The U.S. Navy used parts of it for gunnery and bombing practice until 1976. What remained passed to the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Puerto Rican government the following year, with on-site administration established in 1983. Today the refuge covers roughly a quarter of the Culebra archipelago, protecting nesting grounds for more than 50,000 seabirds of 13 species annually, three species of sea turtles, and the extremely rare Culebra giant anole.