Aransas National Wildlife Refuge protects one hundred fifteen thousand three hundred twenty-four acres along San Antonio Bay on the Texas Gulf Coast, including mainland marshes and prairies and most of Matagorda Island, making it the largest area protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Texas. Established on thirty-one December nineteen thirty-seven by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Aransas Migratory Waterfowl Refuge and renamed in nineteen forty, it was developed in part by Civilian Conservation Corps Company 880. Known especially for migratory birds and the endangered whooping crane, it also preserves diverse coastal habitats that support waterfowl, alligators, peccaries, snakes, and bobcats.