The Turkey Creek Sanctuary is a small nature reserve in the city of Palm Bay in Brevard County, Florida, and incorporates both salty hammock and sand pine ridge habitats. The sanctuary is part of the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) program. It has 1.85 miles (3 km) of boardwalk paths and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of jogging trails through native forest to Turkey Creek, an excellent site for seeing birds, turtles, manatees, alligators as well as other local wildlife; there is a canoe deck on the creek. The creek is an important breeding ground for both salt and fresh water fish. The Sanctuary is part of the East Florida section of the Great Florida Birding Trail.
The property was donated to the Florida Audubon Society and the city of Palm Bay in 1978, and fundraising to conserve the area began in 1981. By 1994 113 acres (46 ha) was under the protection of the voluntary management committee. The park is open daily, from 7am to sunset.
The Margaret Hames Nature Center was opened in 1992 and offers environmental education programs, including nature day camps.
Famous quotes containing the words turkey, creek and/or sanctuary:
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defence-line of custom and habit; we must sleep and therefore we must dream.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)