The National Key Deer Refuge in Florida recently celebrated its 50th year of protecting the rare and endangered Key deer. Today, as a result of the refuge's conservation efforts, the Key deer population has rebounded from near extinction to more than 600 animals.

Centered on Big Pine Key and surrounding islands, the refuge protects native habitats that support the Key deer and 21 other threatened and endangered species. The refuge, which originally encompassed 1,000 acres in 1957, now spans more than 8,500 acres. It includes a patchwork of tracts of pine rockland forest, hardwood hammocks, mangroves, freshwater wetlands and coastal marshes.

As part of the refuge's work to protect Key deer, the refuge continually restores habitat, rehabilitates injured deer, monitors herd-health and conducts population checks. It also carries out research on the deer population's density, behavior and migration patterns.

Key deer are the smallest subspecies of the Virginia white-tailed deer. About the size of a large dog, the deer weigh 65 pounds to 80 pounds. They exist nowhere else in the world.

To learn more about the refuge, go to http://www.fws.gov/nationalkeydeer/

For additional information, please contact Anne Morkill, refuge manager of Key Deer Wildlife Refuge at (305) 872-2239.