In 1964, the US became the first country in the world to protect and designate wilderness areas by law. The Wilderness Act of 1964 created the National Wilderness Preservation System and only the US Congress has the power to designate wilderness areas. Today, four government agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the US Forest Service, and the National Park Service, manage the 765 designated wilderness units that protect 110,005,113 acres.
Scattered across the United States, wilderness units come in come in all shapes and sizes. Established in 1980, the Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness is the largest wilderness area in the United States. It consists of 9,078,675 total acres! But not all wilderness units are that large. Of the 765 protected wilderness units in the United States, 13 units have less than 100 acres, but only the two smallest wilderness areas in the United States have less than 10 acres.
After searching the wilderness database at Wilderness.net, the title of the smallest wilderness area in the United States is essentially shared by two unique wilderness units within the National Wilderness Preservation System. Both the Pelican Island Wilderness and the Rocks and Islands Wilderness contain less than 6 acres.
Let’s take a look at the smallest wilderness area in the United States:
Pelican Island Wilderness – 5.5 acres
President Theodore Roosevelt established Pelican Island, Florida as a bird haven on March 14, 1903. This was the first federal land dedicated to wildlife and this led to the creation of the National Wildlife Refuge System. In 1970, the US Congress designated 6 acres (technically 5.5 acres) as the Pelican Island Wilderness Area. This includes the 3 acre island plus 2.5 acres of surrounding water. Today the US Fish and Wildlife Service manages the Pelican Island Wilderness Unit where 15 threatened and endangered species live. As one of the smallest wilderness areas, Pelican Island Wilderness is closed to the public.
And the 2nd smallest wilderness area in the United States is only slightly bigger:
Rocks and Islands Wilderness Area – 5.89 acres
The US Congress designated the Rocks and Islands Wilderness in California in 2006. This wilderness unit protects a mere 5.89 acres of fragile Northern California coastline. The Rocks and Islands Wilderness “encompasses 584 rocks, islands, exposed reefs, and pinnacles.” The Bureau of Land Management manages this unique wilderness unit that sits adjacent to the Kings Range Wilderness.
Less than six acres isn’t a huge area, but both of these wilderness areas are significant to their local environments. The Wilderness Act helps to protect these areas so that they will continue to be “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man” (Section 2(c) – Wilderness Act of 1964).
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