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Alligator in the Everglades |
Alligators have created a niche in wet prairies. With their claws and snouts they dig at low spots and create ponds free of vegetation that remain submerged throughout the dry season. Alligator holes are integral to the survival of aquatic invertebrates, turtles, fish, small mammals, and birds during extended drought p... |
Tropical hardwood hammock |
In a tropical hardwood hammock, trees are very dense and diverse. |
Main article: Tropical hardwood hammock |
Small islands of trees growing on land raised between 1 foot (0.30 m) and 3 feet (0.91 m) above sloughs and prairies are called tropical hardwood hammocks.[58] They may range from one (4,000 m2) to ten acres (40,000 m2) in area, and appear in freshwater sloughs, sawgrass prairies, or pineland. Hammocks are slightly ele... |
Pineland |
Some of the driest land in the Everglades is pineland (also called pine rockland) ecosystem, located in the highest part of the Everglades with little to no hydroperiod. Some floors, however, may have flooded solution holes or puddles for a few months at a time. The most significant feature of the pineland is the singl... |
Prior to urban development of the South Florida region, pine rocklands covered approximately 161,660 acres (654.2 km2) in Miami-Dade County. Within Everglades National Park, 19,840 acres (80.3 km2) of pine forests are protected, but outside the park, 1,780 acres (7.2 km2) of pine communities remained as of 1990, averag... |
A cross section of fresh water ecosystems in the Everglades, with relative average water depths |
Cypress |
A pond in The Big Cypress |
Cypress swamps can be found throughout the Everglades, but the largest covers most of Collier County. The Big Cypress Swamp is located to the west of the sawgrass prairies and sloughs, and it is commonly called "The Big Cypress".[66] The name refers to its area rather than the height or diameter of the trees; at its mo... |
Although The Big Cypress is the largest growth of cypress swamps in South Florida, cypress swamps can be found near the Atlantic Coastal Ridge and between Lake Okeechobee and the Eastern flatwoods, as well as in sawgrass marshes. Cypresses are deciduous conifers that are uniquely adapted to thrive in flooded conditions... |
Mangrove and Coastal prairie |
Red mangrove trees bordering a tidal estuary in the Everglades |
Eventually the water from Lake Okeechobee and The Big Cypress makes its way to the ocean. Mangrove trees are well adapted to the transitional zone of brackish water where fresh and salt water meet.[72] The estuarine ecosystem of the Ten Thousand Islands, which is comprised almost completely of mangrove forests, covers ... |
There are three species of trees that are considered mangroves: red (Rhizophora mangle), black (Avicennia germinans), and white (Laguncularia racemosa), although all are from different families.[75] All grow in oxygen-poor soil, can survive drastic water level changes, and are tolerant of salt, brackish, and fresh wate... |
Florida Bay |
Main article: Florida Bay |
A clump of mangroves in the distance, Florida Bay at Flamingo |
Much of the coast and the inner estuaries are built of mangroves; there is no border between the coastal marshes and the bay. Thus the marine ecosystems in Florida Bay are considered to be a part of the Everglades watershed and one of the ecosystems connected to and affected by the Everglades as a whole. More than 800 ... |
The military penetration of southern Florida offered the opportunity to map a poorly understood and largely unknown part of the country. An 1840 expedition into the Everglades offered the first printed account for the general public to read about the Everglades. The anonymous writer described the terrain the party was ... |
No country that I have ever heard of bears any resemblance to it; it seems like a vast sea filled with grass and green trees, and expressly intended as a retreat for the rascally Indian, from which the white man would never seek to drive them.[100] |
The land seemed to inspire extreme reactions of both wonder or hatred. During the Second Seminole War an army surgeon wrote, "It is in fact a most hideous region to live in, a perfect paradise for Indians, alligators, serpents, frogs, and every other kind of loathsome reptile."[101] |
A survey team led by railroad executive James Edmundson Ingraham explored the area in 1892.[102] In 1897, explorer Hugh Willoughby spent eight days canoeing with a party from the mouth of the Harney River to the Miami River. He sent his observations to the New Orleans Times-Democrat. Willoughby described the water as h... |
Drainage |
A national push for expansion and progress in the United States occurred in the later part of the 19th century, which stimulated interest in draining the Everglades for agricultural use. According to historians, "From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, the United States went th... |
Hamilton Disston's land sale notice |
After the Civil War, a state agency called the Internal Improvement Fund (IIF), whose purpose was to improve Florida's roads, canals, and rail lines, was discovered to be deeply in debt. The IIF found a Pennsylvania real estate developer named Hamilton Disston interested in implementing plans to drain the land for agri... |
The IIF was able to invest in development projects due to Disston's purchase, and an opportunity to improve transportation arose when oil tycoon Henry Flagler began purchasing land and building rail lines along the east coast of Florida, as far south as Palm Beach in 1893.[110] Along the way he built resort hotels, tra... |
During the 1904 gubernatorial race, the strongest candidate, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, a populist Democrat from Duval County, promoted draining the Everglades. He called the future of South Florida the "Empire of the Everglades". Soon after his successful election, he began work to "drain that abominable pestilence-r... |
Growth of urban areas |
A canal lock in the Everglades Drainage District around 1915 |
With the construction of canals, newly reclaimed Everglades land was promoted throughout the United States. Land developers sold 20,000 lots in a few months in 1912. Advertisements promised within eight weeks of arrival, a farmer could be making a living, although for many it took at least two months to clear the land.... |
The increasing population in towns near the Everglades hunted in the area. Raccoons and otters were the most widely hunted for their skins. Hunting often went unchecked; in one trip, a Lake Okeechobee hunter killed 250 alligators and 172 otters.[118] Water birds were a particular target of plume hunting. Bird feathers ... |
In 1886, 5 million birds were estimated to be killed for their feathers.[119] They were shot usually in the spring, when their feathers were colored for mating and nesting. The plumes, or aigrettes, as they were called in the millinery business, sold for $32 an ounce in 1915—the price of gold.[118] Millinery was a $17 ... |
Rum-runners used the Everglades as a hiding spot during Prohibition; it was so vast there were never enough law enforcement officers to patrol it.[122] The arrival of the railroad, and the discovery that adding trace elements like copper was the remedy for crops sprouting and dying quickly, soon created a population bo... |
Flood control |
A sign advertising the completion of the Herbert Hoover Dike |
Two catastrophic hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 caused Lake Okeechobee to breach its levees, killing thousands of people. The government began to focus on the control of floods rather than drainage. The Okeechobee Flood Control District was created in 1929, financed by both state and federal funds. President Herbert Hoove... |
Immediately, the effects of the Hoover Dike were seen. An extended drought occurred in the 1930s; with the wall preventing water from leaving Lake Okeechobee and canals and ditches removing other water, the Everglades became parched. Peat turned to dust. Salt ocean water intruded into Miami's wells; when the city broug... |
Everglades National Park |
President Harry Truman dedicating Everglades National Park on December 6, 1947 |
Main article: Everglades National Park |
The idea of a national park for the Everglades was pitched in 1928, when a Miami land developer named Ernest F. Coe established the Everglades Tropical National Park Association. It had enough support to be declared a national park by Congress in 1934. It took another 13 years to be dedicated on December 6, 1947.[129] ... |
Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project |
The same year the park was dedicated, two hurricanes and the wet season caused 100 inches (250 cm) to fall on South Florida. Although there were no human casualties, agricultural interests lost approximately $59 million (equivalent to $726 million in 2022).[132] In 1948, Congress approved the Central and Southern Flori... |
Everglades Agricultural Area |
See also: Draining and development of the Everglades § Everglades Agricultural Area |
A 2003 U.S. Geological Survey photo showing the border between Water Conservation Area 3 (bottom) with water, and Everglades National Park, dry (top) |
The C&SF established 470,000 acres (1,900 km2) for the Everglades Agricultural Area—27 percent of the Everglades prior to development.[136] In the late 1920s, agricultural experiments indicated that adding large amounts of manganese sulfate to Everglades muck produced a profitable harvest for vegetables.[137] The prima... |
Jetport proposition |
A turning point came for development in the Everglades at the proposal in the late 1960s for an expanded airport, after Miami International Airport outgrew its capacities. The new jetport was planned to be larger than O'Hare, Dulles, JFK, and LAX airports combined,[citation needed] and the chosen location was 6 miles (... |
Restoration |
Main article: Restoration of the Everglades |
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Heritage Outlook cited the Everglades National Park 2020 Conservation Outlook as "Critical." Assessment of current trends were concluded to be "deteriorating" with "very high threat" to the overall health of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, some ecological fe... |
Major contributors to this decline include water quality (nutrient pollution), quantity (reduced water flow), distribution, and timing; invasive species; climate change (sea-level rise, etc.); ocean acidification; and hurricanes. Other significant threats to the restoration and conservation of the Everglades are laggin... |
While some Everglades Restoration projects have been completed, critical plans remain incomplete. Further, pre-CERP components of current plans overestimated the hydrologic and ecologic benefits of these plans, and restoration projects to be complete by 2027 that address these "benefit setbacks" lack timely funding.[14... |
Recent changes in internal site policies have been lauded as showing promising improvement, including improved consistency in the management of park visitor activities, efforts to deal with invasive species, improving prescribed fire activities, and increasing financing opportunities for internal park projects. However... |
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