PHOTO OF THE DAY: Pair of Ospreys Make a Home at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
By NASA information center // August 17, 2023
NASA Focuses on Protecting Wildlife at Kennedy Space Center
BREVARD COUNTY • KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA – Two ospreys perched in their nest atop a marshaling area sign in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Kennedy shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Merritt Island’s strategic location along the Atlantic Flyway provides a resting and feeding place for thousands of wading birds, shorebirds, and songbirds.
More than 330 native and migratory bird species, along with 65 amphibian and reptile species, call Kennedy and the wildlife refuge home.
Within its approximately 140,000 acres, space facilities and technology co-exist with more than 1,500 species of plants and wildlife, including more than 61 federal- and state-listed endangered and threatened animal and plant species.
ABOVE VIDEO: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida shares its boundaries with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Kennedy is responsible for more protected species than any other federal property in the continental United States.
Top priorities focus on monitoring ecosystem dynamics and sharing this vital information with regional stakeholders.
For example, the team tracks habitat quality and populations of native species such as the Florida scrub-jay, West Indian manatee, bald eagle and many more.
The top objective is to assure NASA’s mission in space while monitoring and minimizing impacts to its local ecosystem. It’s an obligation the spaceport takes seriously: here, every day is Earth Day.
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