[2] The wildlife refuge covers an area of 1,450 acres (5.86 square kilometers) or one quarter of the island municipality of Culebra, protecting all of its outlying islands and keys (with the exception of the privately owned Key Norte), and the wetlands and mangroves found in Ensenada Honda and southeast Culebra.

[3] Portions of the island of Culebra were first designated a wildlife reserve in 1909 in accordance with an order proclaimed by then President Theodore Roosevelt.

Portions of the Navy-administered lands were returned to the Puerto Rican government in 1977 while jurisdiction over the rest of the zone was passed to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

[4] More than 50,000 seabirds of 13 species breed and nurture their young at the refuge annually, with the largest sooty tern nesting in the Culebra archipelago being found on Peninsula Flamenco.

This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.