Destruction Island

Home to seabirds, shorebirds, and marine mammals, it is part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge.

[4] In recent years the population of rhinoceros auklets has been in decline as a result of habitat loss and eagle predation due to the presence of non-native European rabbits.

In 1775, Spanish Navy lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra dispatched a crew of seven men to the mainland in order to gather wood and fresh water on the beach near Point Grenville,[6] but they were attacked and killed by an estimated three hundred local Native Americans, leading him to name it Isla de Dolores (Island of Sorrows).

[2] Twelve years later, Captain Charles William Barkley, an independent English fur trader, arrived in the ship Imperial Eagle and sent a party ashore from the island, to a similar fate.

On the mainland coast about 4 miles northeast is the popular Ruby Beach, from which both the island and the lighthouse are visible.