Wildlife in Jacksonville, Florida

Six Jacksonville wildlife guides sit under this hub, and the table matches the questions people ask about animals on the St. Johns River and the Duval beaches with a key fact and the guide that covers it.

Manatees in Jacksonville waters are covered by the City of Jacksonville (Duval) manatee protection plan, which the FWC list shows with 2018 as its year approved or last revised (FWC manatee protection plans).

Duval is one of the 13 Key counties the Governor and Cabinet directed in October 1989 to develop plans, and as of 2007 all 13 had FWC-approved plans; FWC and the regulatory agencies use those plans when they review permit applications for new or expanding boat facilities (FWC).

Rescue work is local. The FWC Northeast Field Station is on the Jacksonville Zoo grounds, and its staff respond to manatees from Nassau County at the Georgia border to the northern half of Volusia County (FWC field stations). The manatees guide covers manatee habitat, the Duval protection plan and rescue work at the Jacksonville Zoo in detail.

North Atlantic right whale mothers and calves are seen off Jacksonville during a calving season that runs from mid-November through mid-April, and researchers identified 23 calves in the 2026 season (NOAA Fisheries).

NOAA designates the waters off the southeast coast from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to below Cape Canaveral, Florida, a stretch that includes the Jacksonville coast, as right whale critical habitat and an important nursery and calving area (NOAA Fisheries).

One 2026 sighting was close to Duval beaches: on January 8, 2026, an FWC aerial survey team saw right whale #3593 and her new calf about 15 miles off Jacksonville Beach (NOAA Fisheries 2026 season). NOAA names entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with boats and ships as the primary causes of the right whale Unusual Mortality Event, and asks all mariners and boaters to slow down, stay alert and give the whales plenty of room.

The Jacksonville North Atlantic right whale guide covers the critical habitat designation, aerial monitoring and the 2026 calving season.

Shorebirds and seabirds nest at Huguenot Memorial Park, inside the 82-acre Fort George Inlet Critical Wildlife Area, which FWC closes from May 1 to August 31 (FWC Fort George Inlet CWA).

FWC lists royal terns, black skimmers, laughing gulls, gull-billed terns, sandwich terns, brown pelicans and American oystercatchers as the focal species, and calls the Huguenot site in Jacksonville one of the largest nesting colonies of royal terns, laughing gulls and brown pelicans in Florida (FWC). The dunes are posted closed in season, and park staff may post areas outside the CWA because chicks run across the beach.

The JaxParks Huguenot page says the north end of the peninsula closes to vehicles seasonally (before Memorial Day and after Labor Day) for nesting shorebirds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and that the colony is made up of laughing gulls, royal terns, brown pelicans and sandwich terns (JaxParks Huguenot Memorial Park).

Two items on that Jacksonville page are out of date or worth checking before a visit. Its closure line still reads as current with a date of 6/11/2025, and it reports that erosion along the St. John's River made the main road impassable, so the park opens on a temporary road (JaxParks). The park office at (904) 255-4255 can confirm what is open on the Huguenot beach that day. The Huguenot shorebirds guide covers the colony season in depth.

The Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail lists eleven Duval sites, and it calls Huguenot Memorial Park one of the best birding sites on the east coast of Florida, with 237 species recorded (Florida Birding Trail).

The Duval trail sites are Big Talbot Island State Park, Camp Milton Historic Preserve, Castaway Island Preserve, Cedar Point, Fort Caroline National Memorial and Theodore Roosevelt Area, Fort George Island Cultural State Park, Huguenot Memorial Park, Jennings State Forest, Kathryn Abby Hanna Park, Kingsley Plantation and Little Talbot Island State Park (Birding Trail Duval list). Kathryn Abby Hanna Park, a City of Jacksonville beach park, has a checklist of over 200 bird species and nearly 20 miles of hiking and biking trails (Birding Trail).

Several of these Jacksonville sites sit inside the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, which the National Park Service describes as one of the last unspoiled coastal wetlands on the Atlantic Coast, with salt marshes, coastal dunes and hardwood hammocks, and which includes Fort Caroline and Kingsley Plantation (National Park Service). The birding trail sites guide walks through each Duval stop.

Yes, the UNF Dolphin Research Program describes the St. Johns River in Jacksonville as significant year-round habitat for a resident dolphin community and has identified over 520 individual dolphins there (UNF Dolphin Research Program).

UNF crews run weekly vessel-based photo-identification and behavioral surveys on a route from the Mayport inlet to downtown Jacksonville, about 40 km up-river, and see dolphins throughout it (UNF). UNF says the program began in March 2011, after an Unusual Mortality Event was declared for Jacksonville estuarine dolphins in September 2010 following an unprecedented number of strandings in the St. Johns River. The dolphins guide covers where they are seen and how the research works.

FWC Wildlife Alert, at 888-404-FWCC (3922), takes reports of a disturbed sea turtle nest or an injured, dead or harassed sea turtle on Jacksonville beaches (FWC Sea Turtle Program).

Cell phone users in Duval can also dial *FWC or #FWC, or file the report online through the same FWC page (FWC). Manatee response in the area belongs to the FWC Northeast Field Station on the Jacksonville Zoo grounds, whose staff also respond to dolphins and whales in Duval, Nassau, St. Johns, Clay and Putnam counties (FWC field stations). The sea turtles guide covers nesting on the Jacksonville beaches.