Paul Kroegel (January 9, 1864 – 1948) was a German immigrant to the United States who helped establish Pelican Island as a bird sanctuary in Florida. Kroegel is listed as a Great Floridian. Kroegel was born in Chemnitz, Germany. He arrived in Sebastian, Florida in 1881 and homesteaded with his father on a shell midden on the west bank of the Indian River Lagoon overlooking Pelican Island. The island consisted of a five-acres of mangrove where thousands of brown pelicans and other water birds would roost and nest. Kroegel protected the island's avian inhabitants with his shotgun and would stand guard at a time when neither state nor federal laws protected the animals.