Sebastian Scrub Conservation Areas — Sebastian, Florida

Sebastian's scrub conservation areas are a set of county-owned preserves in and around the city that hold oak scrub, sand pine scrub and scrubby flatwoods for the Florida scrub-jay. Indian River County's Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department manages them. Four are documented on the county's conservation lands pages: the 10 acre Sebastian Scrub Conservation Area at 1258 Schumann Drive, the 163 acre Sebastian Harbor Preserve at 184 Englar Drive, the roughly 407 acre North Sebastian Conservation Area at 1295 Main Street, and the 111 acre Wabasso Scrub Conservation Area at 8900 64th Avenue.

These tracts are not ordinary city parks. Most of them serve as the land base of the Sebastian Area-Wide Florida Scrub-Jay Habitat Conservation Plan, a federal Endangered Species Act agreement that let house construction continue on scrub-jay habitat in the Sebastian Highlands in exchange for permanently protected and actively managed scrub elsewhere. This page covers how that trade works and what each Sebastian tract contributes; separate Digital Towns pages cover scrub habitat ecology and the scrub-jay itself.

The conservation areas are the answer to a land-use conflict in the Sebastian Highlands. According to a May 2019 account by the Pelican Island Audubon Society, studies of banded scrub-jays within the Sebastian Highlands from 1991 through 1998 showed a 54% decline from 35 breeding pairs to 16. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service then stopped all development in the Highlands until Indian River County and the City of Sebastian requested a Habitat Conservation Plan and received an Incidental Take Permit, with the purpose of maintaining 13 to 14 scrub-jay families in the Sebastian area.

WQCS reported on October 3, 2025 that the Sebastian Area-wide Florida Scrub-jay Habitat Conservation Plan was approved in 2000 in response to rapid growth in the Sebastian Highlands. The plan allowed homebuilding to continue under an incidental take permit while requiring permanent conservation and habitat restoration. It established five conservation areas, required annual reporting on development impacts, called for restoring scrub through burning and roller-chopping, and set out monitoring of bird territories, reproduction and dispersal.

The county's own pages describe the same exchange from the land side. Indian River County states that conserving and managing the Wabasso Scrub Conservation Area in part mitigates for the incidental take of Florida scrub-jays within platted lots in the Sebastian Highlands, and that the Sebastian Scrub Conservation Area is part of the Sebastian Area-Wide Florida Scrub-Jay Habitat Management Area, designed to offset impacts to scrub-jay habitat within the Highlands.

Inside the Sebastian Highlands, three public parcels link into one wildlife corridor. Indian River County describes the Sebastian Scrub Conservation Area as a 10-acre tract on the west side of Schumann Drive approximately 0.5 miles north of the intersection at Barber Street. It connects northwest to the Sebastian Stormwater Park, owned by the St. Johns River Water Management District, and beyond that to the county's Sebastian Harbor Preserve. The county gives the stormwater park as 179 acres on the Sebastian Scrub page and 166 acres on the Sebastian Harbor Preserve page; the two county figures have not been reconciled in the sources reviewed.

The 10 acre Schumann Drive tract is dominated by oak scrub and scrubby flatwoods, which the county calls desirable habitat for the scrub-jay. Indian River County has cleared trails and firebreaks there, installed an informational kiosk and educational signage, and runs an active program to monitor the scrub-jays observed on site. The county reminds visitors that the scrub-jay is a federally protected species and that it is unlawful to feed or harass the birds.

The Sebastian Harbor Preserve is the larger anchor of the corridor. Indian River County purchased the 163-acre tract within the Sebastian Highlands development in 2007, citing three goals: joining a larger wildlife corridor, giving Sebastian residents a site to explore native habitat in their own community, and furthering the county's conservation of native species. Scrubby and mesic flatwoods dominate, broken by freshwater marshes and wet prairies, and the county lists the Florida gopher tortoise, Florida scrub-jay and southern bald eagle among protected species there, along with a resident bald eagle and numerous osprey nests.

The North Sebastian Conservation Area is the largest county tract in the Sebastian system. Indian River County purchased the roughly 407 acres between 1996 and 1999 under three Florida Communities Trust cost-share grant projects, and calls it a key property for county resource management under the HCP finalized in March 2000. Over 10 miles of trails cross its mosaic of mesic, scrubby and hydric flatwoods, oak scrub, sand pine scrub, marshes and wet prairies, and it is the only conservation tract managed by the county that allows equestrian use.

The Wabasso Scrub Conservation Area, on 64th Avenue with a Sebastian address, predates the HCP. Indian River County bought the 111 acres in 1995. The county breaks it down as 53 acres of sand pine/scrub oak and scrubby flatwoods, 15 acres of wet prairies, 41 acres of pine flatwoods and about 2 acres of other lands, and states that the sand pine scrub, roughly 40 percent of the Wabasso tract, is classified as imperiled both globally and statewide by the Florida Natural Areas Inventory and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Florida scrub-jays and gopher tortoises have been studied on the site since 2000, and it has served as a recipient site for relocated gopher tortoises.

Scrub needs disturbance, and the HCP builds that work into county practice. On the Sebastian Harbor Preserve, Indian River County began management in 2007 with roller chopping and burning in the scrubby and mesic flatwoods, and completed a melaleuca removal project in the wetlands, introducing melaleuca weevils to aid long term control. Sebastian Daily reported that from November 27 to December 4, 2023, the county and the Florida Forest Service Okeechobee District mechanically treated about 2 acres beside Barber Street near Pelican Island Elementary School, at 1355 Schumann Drive, to reduce wildfire risk and improve scrub-jay habitat as part of a 20-year commitment under the Sebastian Area Wide HCP.

Restoration has also followed losses. In August 2013 Vero News reported that a developer had cleared several acres on the scrub jay conservation land at Bristol and Barber Streets in Sebastian, and that the St. Johns River Water Management District's Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program agreed to buy 250 scrub oaks and 25 wiregrass plants for volunteers to replant.

Monitoring results are the measure of the program. WQCS reported in October 2025 that Indian River County supports more than 120 banded scrub-jays across 33 family territories on public lands including the North Sebastian Conservation Area, Wabasso Scrub Conservation Area and Jane Schnee Scrub Preserve. More than 300 birds have been color-banded since 2000, volunteers log more than 600 hours a year, and over 50 dispersals from county lands to St. Sebastian River Preserve State Park have been documented. Parks, Recreation and Conservation Director Elizabeth Powell was scheduled to present the Sebastian plan at the 2025 National Habitat Conservation Planning Conference.