Everglades
The Florida Everglades is a tropical marshland located in the southwest portion of the U.S. state of Florida, specifically Lee, De Soto, Dade and St. Lucie counties
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2 Everglades National Park 3 Flora 4 Fauna 5 History 6 Threats 7 External links 8 Sources |
The Everglades extends from Lake Okeechobee on the north, to the Florida Straits on the south and was originally bordered by the Big Cypress Swamp. It has been called the River of Grass because there is a slow flow of water from the lake south and the principal plant is the sedge known as sawgrass. The higher points in this extremely flat area are covered with trees.
Some 50% of the original Everglades have been lost to agriculture. Most of the rest is now protected in a number of national parks. Water from the Everglades is still used as a water supply for major cities in the areas such as Miami. The Everglades is also criss-crossed from west to east by a toll road called Alligator Alley.
An Anhinga perched on the boardwalk railing
The floor of the lake is a limestone basin and the lake varies in depth from 1 to 12 feet (0.3 to 4 m), its water being pure and clear. The surface is above tide level, and the lake is enclosed, probably on all sides, within an outcropping limestone rim, averaging about 10 feet (3 m) above mean low tide, and approaching much nearer to the Atlantic Ocean on the east than to the Gulf of Mexico on the west.
There are several small outlets, such as the Miami River and the New River on the east and the Shark River on the southwest, but no streams empty into the Everglades, and the water-supply is furnished by springs and precipitation. There is a general southeasterly movement of the water. The soil of the islands is very fertile and is subject to frequent inundations, but gradually the water area is being replaced by land.
Everglades National Park preserves the southern portion of the Everglades, but represents only 20 percent of the original wetlands. It covers 1.5 million acres (6,000 km²) and is a World Heritage Site. The only highway access is the State Road SR9336, running 38 miles (61 km) from Florida City to the coast at Flamingo. Excluding the main visitor center and some smaller park facilities, there is no development in the park.
There are a number of car parks and trails in the Park, of which the most famous is the Anhinga trail. This trail allows very close approach to the birds such as herons and the Anhinga. The latter birds will perch on the rails of the boardwalk.
The soil of the islands is very fertile and is subject to frequent inundations, but gradually the water area is being replaced by land. The vegetation is luxuriant, the live oak, wild lemon, wild orange, cucumber, pawpaw, custard apple and wild rubber trees being among the indigenous species; there are, besides, many varieties of wild flowers, the orchids being especially noteworthy. There are two seasons, wet and dry, but the climate is equable.
Alligator in Everglades National Park
Specialities of the park include Caribbean Flamingo at its only regular North American site, usually near Flamingo, Short-tailed Hawk and Smooth-billed Ani. Other wading birds such as herons, egrets, Wood Stork, Roseate Spoonbill and ibises are abundant; Limpkins can also be found in the Everglades.
The raptors include the rare Snail Kite and the very common Red-shouldered Hawk and Osprey.
From Flamingo, the water and mud flats of Florida Bay allow views of pelicans, shorebirds, terns and skimmers.
The otter, alligator and crocodile are found, also deer and the severely endangered Florida panther.
For much of its history, systematic exploration of the Everglades was prevented by the dense growth of sawgrass (Cladium effusum), a kind of sedge, with sharp, saw-toothed leaves, which grows everywhere on the muckcovered rock basin and extends several feet above the shallow water.
The first Europrean to enter the region was Escalente de Fontenada, a Spanish captive of an Indian chief, who named the lake Laguno del Espiritu Santo and the islands Cayos del Espiritu Santo. Between 1841 and 1856 various United States military forces penetrated the Everglades for the purpose of attacking and driving out the Seminoles, who took refuge here. The most important explorations during the later years of the 19th century were those of Major Archie P. Williams, in 1883, James E. Ingraham in 1892 and Hugh L. Willoughby in 1897. The Seminole Indians were in 1909 practically the only inhabitants.
In 1850 under the Arkansas Bill, or Swamp and Overflow Act, practically all of the Everglades, which the state had been urging the federal government to drain and reclaim, were turned over to the state for that purpose, with the provision that all proceeds from such lands be applied to their reclamation. A board of trustees for the Internal Improvement Fund, created in 1855 and having as members ex officio the governor, comptroller, treasurer, attorney-general and commissioner-general, sold and allowed to railway companies much of the grant. Between 1881 and 1896 a private company owning 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km²) of the Everglades attempted to dig a canal from Lake Okeechobee through Lake Hicpochee and along the Caloosahatchee River to the Gulf of Mexico; the canal was closed in 1902 by overflows. Six canals were begun under state control in 1905 from the lake to the Atlantic, the northernmost at Jensen, the southernmost at Ft. Lauderdale; the total cost, estimated at $1,035,000 for the reclamation of 12,500 m², is raised by a drainage tax, not to exceed $0.10/acre ($24.71/km²), levied by the trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund and Board of Drainage commissioners.
The small area reclaimed prior to that year (1905) was found very fertile and particularly adapted to raising sugar cane, orangess and garden vegetables.
The publication in 1947 of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas' Everglades: River of Grass was as electrifying an event among naturalists as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It drew attention to the vast area that makes South Florida habitable but was being treated by agricultural interests and housing developers as a worthless swamp that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would profitably be able to drain. It galvanized President Harry S. Truman's executive order later that year to protect more than 2 million acres (8,000 km²) as Everglades National Park.
The strength of Mrs. Douglas' name was such that when legislation designed by lawyers representing the sugar growers' industry proposed to suspend all water quality standards in the Everglades for twelve years, it was named the "Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act"—until the 103-year old author demanded that her name be removed from the pending bill (which passed however as the "Everglades Forever Act") when it was finally passed in 1994.
The Florida courts had imposed a plan to reduce damaging phosphate levels in the Park's waters to below 10ppb by 2006. The phosphate derives from sugarcane farming.
Governor Jeb Bush has now put the date back to 2016. Judge William Hoeveler, who was overseeing the cleanup, has been removed following legal action by US Sugar Corporation of Clewiston, Florida.
Overview
Everglades National Park
Flora
Fauna
History
Threats
External links
Sources