Beacon Island, in Portsmouth Township, Carteret County, North Carolina, is an island in the Ocracoke Inlet. The island was used as part of a trading port developed in the late 1700s,[1] and during the American Civil War it was the site of the Confederate Army Fort Okrakoke.[2] Erosion has steadily degraded the island, which measured about twenty acres in size in the 18th century[1] but had shrunk to about 7.5 acres by 2014.[3] As of 2016, Beacon Island was owned by Audubon North Carolina as a bird refuge—it was home to a large population of pelicans until Hurricane Arthur struck in 2014 and damaged the island to an extent that the pelicans left, leaving a population of herons, egrets, gulls, and terns.[3]
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