Decline and disappearance of the Dusky Seaside Sparrow from Merritt Island, Florida

The Dusky Seaside Sparrow, Ammospiza maritima nigrescens, was first discovered by Charles J. Maynard near Salt Lake on the St. Johns River west of Titusville, Brevard County, Florida, on March 17, 1872. Later that spring, Maynard found the sparrow to be quite common in the salt marsh on the Canaveral Peninsula in what is now the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on the John F. Kennedy Space Center. The first Dusky nests were found 42 years later when Oscar E. Baynard and Henry Simpson located three on the peninsula along the edge of Indian River on May 21, 1914. The sparrow was abundant in the marsh on the east of the Indian River until the 1950s. By the early 1960s, the sparrow had disappeared from much of its former range and a decline occurred in an area under study on Merritt Island.