FL Beach Ranks No. 4 In Nation For Most Species Of Marine Life

PINELLAS COUNTY, FL — Wildlife lovers living in Tampa Bay are in luck.

While Pinellas County beaches have been lauded for sand, surf and scenic surroundings, St. Pete Beach has also been named among the beaches in the United States with the most marine life.

St. Pete Beach is home to 366 unique species of birds, reptiles, fish, marine mammals, crustaceans and other critters, not only putting it ahead of most Florida beaches, but ranking it No. 4 across the country for wildlife.

The study was compiled by Hawaiian Islands.com, which combed through crowd-sourced data to find where you’re most likely to see the widest variety of animal life in the sand, sea and sky.

The U.S. boasts 180 coastal or island national wildlife refuges that are abundant with coastal life, ranging from dolphins, oystercatchers, sea turtles and manatees seen in Florida to New England's seals and California's sea lions.

HawaiianIslands.com curated a list of 100 of the most popular tourist beaches in the United States using Tripadvisor data then used iNaturalist.org (an online community database of wildlife observations) to count the animal species observed over the past four years in and around each beach’s coastal area.

Finally, the website ranked the beaches for the total number of unique species, species per 10 acres and separately for the categories of bird, reptile and marine animal species.

When the numbers were tabulated, St. Pete Beach came in fourth place in the U.S. for the number of species of wildlife.

First on the list is Cannon Beach, Oregon, with 471 species; followed by Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with 451 species; and Malibu Lagoon State Park, California, with 419 species.

St. Pete Beach ranked No. 2 for the most marine species spotted, No. 4 for the most reptiles spotted and No. 5 for the most wild birds spotted.

But St. Pete Beach isn't the only place for birdwatchers, wildlife photographers and conservationists to see wildlife. Nine other Florida beaches made the list the 20 U.S. beaches with the highest number of animal species spotted.

If you've taken some amazing wildlife photos you'd like to share with Patch readers, send them with the name of the photographer and location taken to dann.white@patch.com.