Watson Trail National Key Deer Refuge

We can thank the namesake of the Jack C. Watson Wildlife Trail for bringing Key deer back from the edge of extinction.

The tale starts with hunters who’d worried poaching was deciminating the deer population.

A Key deer doe near Blue Hole

In the early 1950s, the Boone and Crockett Club, a venerable sportsmans’ organization, donated funds to U.S. Fish and Wildlife to cover a game warden’s salary.

Hired to guard against poachers, Watson was named the first manager of National Key Deer Refuge before it was even established.

Marker honoring Jack Watson at the start of the trail

Carried on after his death, Watson’s strategies to eliminate poaching and protect deer from cars helped the population grow from 50 to more than 300 between 1954 and 1975.

Taken after Hurricane Irma, the last population count estimates around 950 deer throughout the Lower Keys.

Man in red looking at a palm tree his height

John admiring a thatch palm along the Watson Trail

Resources

Resources for exploring the area

South Florida Explorers Guide book cover

Hikers Guide to the Sunshine State book cover

Disclosure: As authors and affiliates, we receive earnings when you buy these through our links. This helps us provide public information on this website.

Overview

Location: Big Pine Key
Length: 0.8 mile loop
Trailhead: 24.7094, -81.3824
Address: Key Deer Blvd
Fees: Free
Restroom: None
Land manager: National Key Deer Refuge
Phone: 305-872-0774

Open daily from a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset. Repellent is a must.

Bicycles are not permitted on the trail, and pets are not advised so as not to scare away wildlife.

Report wildlife emergencies such as injured or dead Key deer or aggressive animals to Florida FWC immediately at 888-404-3922; press Monroe County extension.

Stay within the marked path to avoid brushing into poisonwood or manchineel.

Poisonwood is found all over Big Pine Key and along this trail, and is much more irritating than poison ivy. With toxic sap, manchineel (Hippomane mancinella) is less common but also present in this forest.

Both tropical trees bear fruit, an important food source for endangered white-crowned pigeons. However, their fruit is deadly to humans.

Manchineel leaves are similar to poisonwood but larger and rounder

Directions

From US 1, follow Key Deer Boulevard past the shopping center. Pay attention to the speed limits as they are slow for a reason: you may see Key deer cross the road along this stretch, especially at dusk and dawn. The turnoff for the parking area is on the left past Blue Hole, 3.2 miles from the shopping center.

Hike

A map is displayed at the Wildlife Trails kiosk. Start at the sign honoring Jack Watson. Surface limestone outcrops all around you as the trail curves left past a stand of poisonwood.

Unlike the Keys to their north, the ancient reef rock under the Lower Keys is overlain with a layer of oolitic Miami limestone, like the bedrock of the Everglades.

Sign with name and silhouette of Jack Watson

Start of the Watson Trail

Exposed limestone dissolves into a rough karst landscape of pinnacles and solution holes where pine rocklands thrive.

Stay right at the fork to begin the loop, which leads into an expanse of pine rocklands.

Pine rocklands

The spindly pines are known as Dade County pine and are extremely resistant to insects and rot, which made them a prime target for logging by early settlers in South Florida.

The extremely rocky floor of the pineland frustrated those same settlers, who used dynamite to destroy it.

Rough limestone and poisonwood foreground to pines

Poisonwood predominates in the understory

While this habitat once stretched across what is now Miami-Dade County, it is now as endangered as the deer themselves.

National Key Deer Refuge protects more than 80% of the remaining pine rocklands of the Florida Keys.

Pine rocklands along the Watson Trail

The tropical understory contains poisonwood, wax myrtle, scattered thatch palms, and occasional silver palms.

Both species of palms are very small compared to the cabbage palms commonly found elsewhere across Florida.

Silver palms at eye level

The trail turns past a side road that leads into another part of the refuge. As the trail curves, you see a sparkle of water through the underbrush.

A quarter mile in, freshwater wetlands accumulate in rocky depressions in the rugged karst terrain.

White footpath through plain of low vegetation

Entering the wetlands

These solution holes trap rainfall, providing critical freshwater resources for the Key deer and cool microclimates where ferns and orchids grow.

Alligators are known to live throughout these wetlands, so be alert as you walk through the sawgrass.

Water in a solution hole

Mosquitofish swim in the shallows, chowing down on mosquito larvae.

The trail rises, slightly elevated to prevent flooding. Deer trails are broken through the underbrush.

Leaving the wetlands for higher ground

Notice the wonderful quiet, just the breeze (or Key deer) rustling through the palmetto fronds.

Buttonwoods grow out of a series of solution holes leading to the edge of a tropical hardwood hammock, which affords some patches of shade.

John watching wildlife in the tropical hammock

At a half mile, curve left past a satinleaf tree and some thatch palms. A cabbage palm rises out of a deep solution hole.

The landscape opens up into pine rocklands with a rugged rocky forest floor and scattered solution holes filled with water. Sawgrass grows along their edges.

Back into the pine rockland habitat

Cross a culvert over a mosquito control ditch etched into this rugged landscape.

Past another small collection of silver palms, reach the end of the loop and continue straight ahead. At 0.8 mile, exit to the Wildlife Trails trailhead.

Mosquito ditch near the end of the trail

Trail Map

Map of trails on Big Pine Key, National Key Deer Refuge — Mannillo Trail in yellow. Watson Trail in red. Blue Hole in blue.

Explore More!

Learn more about National Key Deer Refuge

National Key Deer Refuge

Established in 1957 to prevent the extinction of the diminutive Key deer, National Key Deer Refuge spans 84,351 acres across 25 islands in the Lower Keys.