The Jekyll Island Authority is the Ranger office. Jekyll is GA state owned, and it's a hybrid of a…read morestate park, and government-regulated tourist area. The Island Authority is the ranger station authorized to patrol and protect the island, and its wildlife.
The best way to get to know the island wildlife is to take a Ranger Walk. There are other programs throughout the year, but from Dec-March, the bald eagles hatch their young, and can be observed in their nests. Jekyll Island is home to a variety of birds, reptiles, and mammals, as well as some very cool plant activity.
Ranger Erin headed my walk, and it was extremely fun. Our group was about 10 people, and my toddler was able to join free of charge. We did plant and animal spotting, and the information Erin pointed out was so fascinating to me. We saw and learned about salt marsh succulents (that can provide fresh water if needed), sweet gum trees, Resurrection ferns, Yaupon hollies, muscadine vines, tasted pickle wort (a delicacy in London), and we crushed up wild bay leaves to smell their beautiful scent (which I wish someone would bottle into perfume!). We learned that Spanish moss is an epiphyte, and its closest relative is pineapple. We saw black needle rush that really is like sharp needles, and learned that Timucuan tribes used it to sew clothing. We saw a number of birds (I'm sorry I cannot remember them all), and learned that egrets almost went extinct for the use of their feathers in ladies' hats.
Erin brought a telescope on the walk, and let us all have a few turns looking at the eagles' nest. She explained they were lucky to have an eglette a couple years in a row, and gave a lot of info on bald eagles. She estimated their nest was the size of a VW Beetle, which was amazing because we were so far away, it seemed a lot smaller. But eagles are fiercely protective of their young, and she said they must sense the telescope gazing from their tours, because the parents had built up the wall on that side of the nest for further privacy.
We saw a female gator named JC, who was pregnant. She was lounging in a freshwater stream, but our ranger showed us a nearby salt marsh, where gators spend an equal amount of time. She said health benefits abound for gators to cross-inhabit these micro-ecosystems, such as using salt water to clean freshwater bacteria from their mouths. Erin said the gators had never hurt anyone, and their department is much more concerned about human injuries to gators (like from speedboats, and one had been shot). She named several of the resident gators of Jekyll, and noted where they usually could be found. The largest, Sauron, is 11.5' long, and likes to hang on the main golf course.
Erin was so informative, and added many on-the-job experiences to her stories, such as how she has to hold gator mouths shut when they track them to collect data. She said they don't have many muscles to open their jaws, so holding them shut is not as hard as holding them open. When you hold their mouth open, they're really powerful to resist because of their muscles needed to chomp on prey. That made me feel better about our safety, but I was still a little nervous.
I cannot say enough about the ranger team on Jekyll. I felt so safe in their hands on the island. Their programming quality goes above and beyond to entertain and educate visitors.
