Pelican Island Wildlife Festival and Anniversary Weekend

The Pelican Island Wildlife Festival is the yearly March celebration of Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the island in the Indian River Lagoon that President Theodore Roosevelt set aside on March 14, 1903.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service records that Roosevelt made Pelican Island the first federal bird reservation on that date, giving birth to the National Wildlife Refuge System, and that Audubon hired Paul Kroegel as its first warden. Pelican Island itself is now roughly 3 acres, down from 5.5 acres in 1970 because of boat wakes and sea level rise, and the Service calls the Pelican Island Wilderness the smallest unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

The festival started in 1993. The Pelican Island Conservation Society says local citizens organized the refuge's 90th Anniversary Celebration that year, the first Pelican Island Wildlife Festival, and then formed the Pelican Island Preservation Society to keep the anniversary going; the group took its current name in 2019. For 2025 the society invited the public to a weekend of events from March 14 to 16 marking the 122nd anniversary of the first national wildlife refuge, held at the Heritage Center in Vero Beach and the Environmental Learning Center on Live Oak Drive (PICS event listing).

The Pelican Island celebration falls on or near the weekend closest to March 14, the refuge's 1903 founding date, and the 2025 edition ran Friday through Sunday.

The 1996 date comes from a remembrance on the society news page, which places the 4th annual festival at Sebastian River High School. The Fish and Wildlife Service centennial schedule lists the 11th annual festival at Riverview Park in March 2003, and the 2025 dates come from the society's event listing.

Dates for the next Pelican Island celebration are not posted yet. When this page was checked on October 14, 2026, the society's calendar listed only its fall art show, and no official schedule for a 2027 anniversary weekend could be retrieved, so the March 2025 program below is the latest confirmed format.

At Riverview Park in Sebastian, the 2003 centennial edition of the Pelican Island Wildlife Festival was a free two-day fair of exhibitors, wildlife shows, music and boat tours to view Pelican Island.

The Fish and Wildlife Service centennial schedule ran the 11th Annual Pelican Wildlife Festival from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday, March 15 and 16, 2003, at Riverview Park in Sebastian, with live wildlife shows by Jack Hanna and Jim Fowler, exhibitors, arts and crafts, kids activities, live music, seminars and boat tours to view Pelican Island. It listed every event as free and open to the public. On Friday, March 14, a Centennial Celebration Ceremony at the park hosted the U.S. Postal Service first day of issue ceremony for the Pelican commemorative stamp, followed at 7:00 pm by a concert with Sebastian's own Arlo Guthrie and fireworks sponsored by the City of Sebastian and the Sebastian River Area Chamber.

The same schedule listed the first day opening of the refuge's new Centennial Trail and Observation Tower among the festival events. The Service's refuge history dates the trail's dedication to March 14, 2003 and describes a three-quarter-mile footpath leading to a boardwalk of 569 planks, one for each national wildlife refuge, and an observation tower that looks across the lagoon at Pelican Island. Not every edition used the park: the society's news page places the 4th annual festival on March 10, 1996 at Sebastian River High School.

Today's Pelican Island celebration is a weekend of separate events at venues in Vero Beach, while the 2003 centennial festival was a two-day fair at Riverview Park in Sebastian.

In 2025 the society's events moved between two sites. The Friday program was a fireside chat at the Heritage Center, 2140 14th Avenue in Vero Beach, where a Theodore Roosevelt re-enactor told stories of his childhood, of how he became known as the conservation president and of how he came to designate Pelican Island as the first national wildlife refuge (PICS fireside chat listing). The Saturday anniversary celebration ran from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM at the Environmental Learning Center, 255 Live Oak Drive, with Joe Wiegand appearing as President Roosevelt (PICS event listing).

The 2003 festival, by contrast, filled Riverview Park in Sebastian for two days with exhibitors, wildlife shows, live music and boat tours, and every event was listed as free (Fish and Wildlife Service centennial schedule). The newer format puts its evening events behind reservations.

The 2025 Pelican Island anniversary weekend combined a Friday evening talk by reservation, a Saturday daytime celebration at the Environmental Learning Center and a paid sunset cruise.

The times and places come from the society's event listings for the fireside chat, the Saturday celebration and the sunset cruise. The cruise listing says the boat greets the pelicans and other birds as they return to their evening roost on Pelican Island and arrives back at the Environmental Learning Center dock right after sunset. Refunds are given only if the captain cancels for weather, and there are no refunds for missing the boat. The weekend listing names March 14 to 16 but posts no separate Sunday event.

The refuge's public use area sits on the Historic Jungle Trail off A1A, about 3.3 miles south of Sebastian Inlet, with the Centennial Trail at 11455 Jungle Trail.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gives driving directions from I-95 exit 156 at County Road 512 (Sebastian Boulevard), then 90th Avenue and County Road 510 to A1A, north 3.8 miles to Jungle Trail, where two refuge parking lots serve the trails. The refuge is at 4055 Wildlife Way and answers at (772) 581-5557. The Service places the public use area 3.7 miles north of Wabasso Beach Road (CR 510) or 3.3 miles south of Sebastian Inlet. The Service's own page also gives two sets of hours, public use areas open daily from 7:30 a.m. until sunset in one place and refuge hours of sunrise to sunset in another, so the later 7:30 a.m. opening is the safer plan. Last verified: October 14, 2026, on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.

The Service notes that drinking water is not available on the refuge, pets other than service animals are not allowed and bicycles are not allowed on the trails. The society's home page says guided tram tours of the refuge resume on Wednesdays from mid-January through April, 8 to 10:30 a.m. by reservation, and refuge volunteers meet visitors at the Centennial trailhead every Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The Pelican Island Conservation Society's other public event is the Indian River Bird and Nature Art Show at the Sebastian Old Schoolhouse, held October 10 to 17, 2026 for National Wildlife Refuge Week.

The society's calendar lists the show daily from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the Sebastian Old Schoolhouse, 1235 Main Street, with an artists' reception and awards on Saturday, October 10, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, preceded at 1:00 PM by a Pelican Island refuge slideshow premiere from society president Jim Boggs. Two field walks start from the Sebastian River Art Club parking area at 1245 Main Street: an Owl Prowl at 6:45 PM on October 10 and a Scrub Jay Walk from 8:00 to 10:00 AM on October 11. The news page ties the show to National Wildlife Refuge Week, and the society can be reached at 772-202-0697 (PICS).