Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.

Most national parks preserve unique geographic features; Everglades National Park was the first created to protect a fragile ecosystem. The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay. The park is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. Thirty-six threatened or protected species inhabit the park, including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee, along with 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles. The majority of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park.

Humans have lived for thousands of years in or around the Everglades. Plans arose in 1882 to drain the wetlands and develop the land for agricultural and residential use. As the 20th century progressed, water flow from Lake Okeechobee was increasingly controlled and diverted to enable explosive growth of the Miami metropolitan area. The park was established in 1934, to protect the quickly vanishing Everglades, and dedicated in 1947, as major canal-building projects were initiated across South Florida. The ecosystems in Everglades National Park have suffered significantly from human activity, and restoration of the Everglades is a politically charged issue in South Florida.

Geography

Everglades National Park covers , throughout Dade, Monroe, and Collier counties in Florida, at the southern tip of the Atlantic coastal plain. The elevation typically ranges from 0 to above sea level, but a Calusa-built shell mound on the Gulf Coast rises above sea level.

Geology

The terrain of South Florida is relatively and consistently flat. The limestone that underlies the Everglades is integral to the diverse ecosystems within the park. Florida was once part of the African portion of the supercontinent Gondwana. After it separated, conditions allowed a shallow marine environment to deposit calcium carbonate in sand, shells, and coral to be converted into limestone. Tiny bits of shell, sand, and bryozoans compressed over multiple layers forming structures in the limestone called ooids, which created permeable conditions that hold water.

The Florida peninsula appeared above sea level between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. As sea levels rose at the end of the Wisconsin ice age, the water table appeared closer to land. Lake Okeechobee began to flood, and convection thunderstorms were created. Vast peat deposits south of Lake Okeechobee indicate that regular flooding had occurred about 5,000 years ago. Plants began to migrate, subtropical ones from the northern part of Florida, and tropicals carried as seeds by birds from islands in the Caribbean. The limestone shelf appears to be flat, but there are slight rises—called pinnacles—and depressions caused by the erosion of limestone by the acidic properties of the water. The amount of time throughout the year that water is present in a location in the Everglades determines the type of soil, of which there only two in the Everglades: peat, created by many years of decomposing plant matter, and marl, the result of dried periphyton, or chunks of algae and microorganisms that create a grayish mud. Portions of the Everglades that remain flooded for more than nine months out of the year are usually covered by peat. Areas that are flooded for six months or less are covered by marl. Plant communities are determined by the type of soil and the amount of water present.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Royal Palm at Everglades National Park has a tropical monsoon climate (''Am''). Summers are long, hot, and very wet and winters are warm and dry.

Hydrography

While they are common in the northern portion of Florida, no underground springs feed water into the Everglades system. An underground reservoir called the Floridan aquifer lies about below the surface of South Florida. The Everglades has an immense capacity for water storage, owing to the permeable limestone beneath the exposed land. Most of the water arrives in the form of rainfall, and a significant amount is stored in the limestone. Water evaporating from the Everglades becomes rain over metropolitan areas, providing the fresh water supply for the region. Water also flows into the park after falling as rain to the north onto the watersheds of the Kissimmee River and other sources of Lake Okeechobee, to appear in the Everglades days later. Water overflows Lake Okeechobee into a river wide, which moves almost imperceptibly.

Ecosystems

At the turn of the 20th century, common concepts of what should be protected in national parks invariably included formidable geologic features like mountains, geysers, or canyons. As Florida's population began to grow significantly and urban areas near the Everglades were developed, proponents of the park's establishment faced difficulty in persuading the federal government and the people of Florida that the subtle and constantly shifting ecosystems in the Everglades were just as worthy of protection. When the park was established in 1947, it became the first area within the U.S. to protect flora and fauna native to a region as opposed to geologic scenery.Everglades National Park / Dry Tortugas National Park
Superintendent's Report, 2008 Fiscal Year. Retrieved on May 26, 2010. The National Park Service recognizes nine distinct interdependent ecosystems within the park that constantly shift in size owing to the amount of water present and other environmental factors.

Freshwater sloughs and marl prairies

Freshwater sloughs are perhaps the most common ecosystem associated with Everglades National Park. These drainage channels are characterized by low-lying areas covered in fresh water, flowing at an almost imperceptible per day.Robertson, p. 9. Shark River Slough and Taylor Slough are significant features of the park. Sawgrass growing to a height of or more, and broad-leafed marsh plants, are so prominent in this region that they gave the Everglades its nickname "River of Grass", cemented in the public imagination in the title for Marjory Stoneman Douglas's book (1947), which culminated years of her advocacy for considering the Everglades ecosystem as more than a "swamp". Excellent feeding locations for birds, sloughs in the Everglades attract a great variety of waders such as herons, egrets, roseate spoonbills (''Platalea ajaja''), ibises and brown pelicans (''Pelecanus occidentalis''), as well as limpkins (''Aramus guarauna'') and snail kites that eat apple snails, which in turn feed on the sawgrass. The sloughs' availability of fish, amphibians, and young birds attract a variety of freshwater turtles, alligator (''Alligator mississippiensis''), water moccasin (''Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti''), and eastern diamondback rattlesnake (''Crotalus adamanteus'').

Freshwater marl prairies are similar to sloughs but lack the slow movement of surface water; instead, water seeps through a calcitic mud called marl. Algae and other microscopic organisms form periphyton, which attaches to limestone. When it dries it turns into a gray mud. Sawgrass and other water plants grow shorter in freshwater marl than they do in peat, the other type of soil in the Everglades which is found where water remains present longer throughout the year. Marl prairies are usually under water from three to seven months of the year, whereas sloughs may remain submerged for longer than nine months and sometimes remain under water from one year to the next. Sawgrass may dominate sloughs, creating a monoculture. Other grasses, such as muhly grass (''Muhlenbergia sericea'') and broad-leafed water plants can be found in marl prairies. Animals living in the freshwater sloughs also inhabit marl prairies. Marl prairies may go dry in some parts of the year; alligators play a vital role in maintaining life in remote parts of the Everglades by burrowing in the mud during the dry season, creating pools of water where fish and amphibians survive from one year to the next. Alligator holes also attract other animals who congregate to feed on smaller prey. When the region floods again during the wet season, the fish and amphibians which were sustained in the alligator holes then repopulate freshwater marl prairies.

Tropical hardwood hammocks

Hammocks are often the only dry land within the park. They rise several inches above the grass-covered river and are dominated by diverse plant life consisting of subtropical and tropical trees, such as large southern live oaks (''Quercus virginiana''). Trees often form canopies under which animals thrive amongst scrub bushes of wild coffee ('' Psychotria''), white indigoberry (''Randia aculeata''), poisonwood (''Metopium toxiferum'') and saw palmetto (''Serenoa repens''). The park features thousands of these tree islands amid sloughs—which often form the shape of a teardrop when seen from above (see park map) because of the slowly moving water around them—but they can also be found in pineland and mangroves. Trees in the Everglades, including wild tamarind ('' Lysiloma latisiliquum'') and gumbo-limbo (''Bursera simaruba''), rarely grow higher than because of wind, fire, and climate.

The plant growth around the hammock base is nearly impenetrable; beneath the canopy hammocks is an ideal habitat for animals. Reptiles (such as various species of snake and anole) and amphibians (such as the American green tree frog, ''Hyla cinerea''), live in the hardwood hammocks. Birds such as barred owls (''Strix varia''), woodpeckers, northern cardinals (''Cardinalis cardinalis''), and southern bald eagles (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus'') nest in hammock trees. Mammal species living in hardwood hammocks include Florida black bears (''Ursus americanus floridanus''), red foxes (''Vulpes vulpes''), minks (''Neogale vison''), marsh rabbits (''Sylvilagus palustris''), gray foxes (''Urocyon cinereoargenteus''), white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), and the rare, critically endangered Florida panther (''Puma concolor couguar'').

Pineland

Miami-Dade County was once covered in of pine rockland forests, but most of it was harvested by the lumber industry. Pineland ecosystems (or pine rocklands) are characterized by shallow, dry sandy loam over a limestone substrate covered almost exclusively by slash pines (''Pinus elliottii var. densa''). Trees in this ecosystem grow in solution holes, where the soft limestone has worn away and filled with soil, allowing plants to take hold. Pinelands require regular maintenance by fire to ensure their existence. South Florida slash pines are uniquely adapted to promote fire by dropping a large amount of dried pine needles and shedding dry bark. Pine cones require heat from fires to open, allowing seeds to disperse and take hold. The trunks and roots of slash pines are resistant to fire. Prescribed burns in these areas take place every three to seven years; without regular fires, hardwood trees begin to grow in this region, and pinelands become recategorized as mixed swamp forests.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Pine Rocklands: Multispecies recovery plan for South Florida
". Most plants in the area bloom about 16 weeks after a fire. Nearly all pinelands have an understory of palm shrubs and a diverse ground covering of wild herbs.

Pine rocklands are considered one of the most threatened habitats in Florida; less than of pineland exist outside the park. Within the park, of pineland are protected. A variety of animal species meet their needs for food, shelter, nesting, and rooking in pine rocklands. Woodpeckers, eastern meadowlarks (''Sturnella magna''), loggerhead shrikes (''Lanius ludovicianus''), grackles, and northern mockingbirds (''Mimus polyglottos'') are commonly found in pinelands. Black bears and Florida panthers also live in this habitat.

Cypress and mangrove

Cypress trees are conifers that are adapted to live in standing fresh water. They grow in compact structures called cypress domes and in long strands over limestone. Water levels may fluctuate dramatically around cypress domes and strands, so cypresses develop "knees" that protrude from the water at high levels to provide oxygen for the root systems. Dwarf cypress trees grow in drier areas with poorer soil. Epiphytes, such as bromeliads, Spanish moss ('' Tillandsia usneoides''), orchids and ferns grow on the branches and trunks of cypress trees. Everglades National Park features twenty-five species of orchids. Tall cypress trees provide excellent nesting areas for birds including wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo''), ibis, herons, egrets, anhingas (''Anhinga anhinga''), and belted kingfisher (''Megaceryle alcyon''). Mammals in cypress regions include white-tailed deer, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, skunks, swamp rabbits, river otters (''Lontra canadensis''), and bobcats, as well as small rodents.

Mangrove trees cover the coastlines of South Florida, sometimes growing inland depending on the amount of salt water present within the Everglades ecosystems. During drier years when less fresh water flows to the coast, mangroves will appear among fresh water plants. When rain is abundant, sawgrass and other fresh water plants may be found closer to the coast. Three species of mangrove trees—red (''Rhizophora mangle''), black ('' Avicennia germinans''), and white (''Laguncularia racemosa'')—can be found in the Everglades. With a high tolerance of salt water, winds, extreme tides, high temperatures, and muddy soils, mangrove trees are uniquely adapted to extreme conditions. They act as nurseries for many marine and bird species. They are also Florida's first defense against the destructive forces of hurricanes, absorbing flood waters and preventing coastal erosion. The mangrove system in Everglades National Park is the largest continuous system of mangroves in the world.

Within the Florida mangrove systems live 220 species of fish, and a variety of crabs, crayfish, shrimp, mollusks, and other invertebrates, which serve as the main source of food for many birds. Dozens of bird species use mangroves as nurseries and food stores, including pelicans, grebes, tricolored herons (''Egretta tricolor''), gulls, terns, hawks and kites, and arboreal birds like mangrove cuckoos (''Coccyzus minor''), yellow warblers (''Dendroica petechia''), and white-crowned pigeons (''Patagioenas leucocephala''). The mangroves also support 24 species of amphibians and reptiles, and 18 species of mammals, including the endangered green turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), hawksbill turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata''), and West Indian manatee (''Trichechus manatus'').

Coastal lowlands

Coastal lowlands, or wet prairies, are salt water marshes that absorb marine water when it gets high or fresh water when rains are heavy. Floods occur during hurricane and tropical storm surges when ocean water can rise several feet over the land. Heavy wet seasons also cause floods when rain from the north flows into the Everglades. Few trees can survive in the conditions of this region, but plants—succulents like saltwort and glasswort—tolerate salt, brackish water, and desert conditions. Animal life in this zone is dependent upon the amount of water present, but commonly found animals include Cape Sable seaside sparrow (''Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis''), Everglades snail kite (''Rostrhamus sociabilis''), wood stork (''Mycteria americana''), eastern indigo snake (''Drymarchon couperi''), and small mammals such as rats, mice, and rabbits.

Marine and estuarine

The largest body of water within the park is Florida Bay, which extends from the mangrove swamps of the mainland's southern tip to the Florida Keys. Over of marine ecosystem lies in this range. Coral, sponges, and seagrasses serve as shelter and food for crustaceans and mollusks, which in turn are the primary food source for larger marine animals. Sharks, stingrays, and barracudas also live in this ecosystem. Pelicans, shorebirds, terns, and black skimmers (''Rynchops niger'') are among the birds frequenting park shorelines. The bay also has its own resident population of bottlenose dolphin (''Tursiops truncatus'').

The bay's many basins are broken up by sandbanks that serve as plentiful recreational fishing grounds for snook (''Centropomus undecimalis''), redfish (''Sciaenops ocellatus''), spotted seatrout (''Cynoscion nebulosus)'', tarpon (''Megaflops atlanticus),'' bonefish (''Albula vulpes)'', and permit (''Trichinous falcatus)'', as well as snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), and bass. Wading birds such as roseate spoonbills (''Platalea ajaja''), reddish egrets (''Egretta rufescens''), and great white herons (''Ardea herodias occidentalis'') have unique subpopulations that are largely restricted to Florida Bay. Other bird species include bald eagles, cormorants, and ospreys. Mammals along the shoreline include raccoons, opossums, bobcats, and fox squirrels.

Human history

Native peoples

Humans likely first inhabited the South Florida region 10,000 to 20,000 years ago.Tebeau (1963), p. 17 Two tribes of Native Americans developed on the peninsula's southern tip: the Tequesta lived on the eastern side and the Calusa, greater in numbers, on the western side. The Everglades served as a natural boundary between them. The Tequesta lived in a single large community near the mouth of the Miami River, while the Calusa lived in 30 villages. Both groups traveled through the Everglades but rarely lived within them, remaining mostly along the coast.

The diets of both groups consisted mostly of shellfish and fish, small mammals, game, and wild plants. Having access only to soft limestone, most of the tools fashioned by Native Americans in the region were made of shell, bone, wood, and animal teeth; shark teeth were used as cutting blades,Tebeau (1963), p. 19. and sharpened reeds became arrows and spears. Shell mounds still exist today within the park, giving archaeologists and anthropologists evidence of the raw materials available to the indigenous people for tool construction. Spanish explorers estimated the number of Tequesta at first contact to be around 800, and Calusa at 2,000; the National Park Service reports there were probably about 20,000 natives living in or near the Everglades when the Spanish established contact in the late 16th century. The Calusa lived in social strata and were able to create canals, earthworks, and shellworks. The Calusa were also able to resist Spanish attempts at conquest.

The Spanish had contact with these societies and established missions further north, near Lake Okeechobee. In the 18th century, invading Creeks incorporated the dwindling numbers of the Tequesta into their own. Neither the Tequesta nor Calusa tribe existed by 1800. Disease, warfare, and capture for slavery were the reasons for the eradication of both groups. The only evidence of their existence within the park boundaries is a series of shell mounds that were built by the Calusa.

In the early 19th century, Creeks, escaped African slaves, and other Indians from northern Florida displaced by the Creek War, formed the area's Seminole nation. After the end of the Seminole Wars in 1842, the Seminoles faced relocation to Indian territory near Oklahoma. A few hundred Seminole hunters and scouts settled within what is today Big Cypress National Preserve, to escape the forced emigration to the west. From 1859 to about 1930, the Seminoles and Miccosukee, a similar but linguistically unique tribe, lived in relative isolation, making their living by trading. In 1928, surveying and construction began on the Tamiami Trail, along the northern border of Everglades National Park. The road bisected the Everglades, introducing a steady, if small, traffic of white settlers into the Everglades.

Some members of the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes continue to live within park boundaries. Management of the park includes approval of new policies and procedures by tribal representatives "in such a manner that they do not conflict with the park purpose".

American settlements

Following the end of the Seminole Wars, Americans began settling at isolated points along the coast in what is now the park, from the Ten Thousand Islands to Cape Sable. Communities developed on the two largest pieces of dry ground in the area, on Chokoloskee Island and at Flamingo on Cape Sable, both of which established post offices in the early 1890s. Chokoloskee Island is a shell mound, a midden built roughly 20 feet (6 m) high over thousands of years of occupation by the Calusa. The settlements in Chokoloskee and Flamingo served as trading centers for small populations of farmers, fishermen, and charcoal burners settled in the Ten Thousand Islands. Both settlements and the more isolated homesteads could only be reached by boat until well into the 20th century. Everglades City, on the mainland near Chokoloskee, enjoyed a brief period of prosperity when, beginning in 1920, it served as the headquarters for the construction of the Tamiami Trail. A dirt road from Florida City reached Flamingo in 1922, while a causeway finally connected Chokoloskee to the mainland's Everglades City in 1956. After the park was established, private property in the Flamingo area was claimed by eminent domain, and the site was incorporated into the park as a visitor center.

Land development and conservation

Several attempts were made to drain and develop the Everglades in the 1880s. The first canals built in the Everglades did little harm to the ecosystem, as they were unable to drain much of it. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward based the majority of his 1904 campaign for governor on how drainage would create "The Empire of the Everglades". Broward ordered the drainage that took place between 1905 and 1910, and it was successful enough that land developers sold tracts for $30 per acre, settling the town of Davie, and developing regions in Lee and Dade counties. The canals also cleared water that made way for agricultural fields growing sugarcane.

In the 1920s, a population boom in South Florida created the Florida land boom, which was described by author Michael Grunwald as "insanity". Land was sold before any homes or structures were built on it and in some cases before any plans for construction were in place. New landowners, eager to make good on their investments, hastily constructed homes and small towns on recently drained land. Mangrove trees on the coasts were taken down for better views and replaced with shallow-rooted palm trees. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on larger canals to control the rising waters in the Everglades. Nevertheless, Lake Okeechobee continued to rise and fall, the region was covered with rain, and city planners continued to battle the water. The 1926 Miami Hurricane caused Lake Okeechobee levees to fail; hundreds of people south of the lake drowned. Two years later, the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane claimed 2,500 lives when Lake Okeechobee once again surged over its levees. Politicians who declared the Everglades uninhabitable were silenced when a four-story wall, the Herbert Hoover Dike, was built around Lake Okeechobee. This wall effectively cut off the water source from the Everglades.

Following the wall's construction, South Florida endured a drought severe enough to cause serious wildfires in 1939. The influx of humans had a detrimental effect on the plants and animals of the region when melaleuca trees (''Melaleuca quinquenervia'') were introduced to help with drainage, along with Australian pines brought in by developers as windbreaks. The region's timber was devastated for lumber supplies. Alligators, birds, frogs, and fish were hunted on a large scale. Entire rookeries of wading birds were shot to collect their plumes, which were used in women's hats in the early 20th century. The largest impact people had on the region was the diversion of water away from the Everglades. Canals were deepened and widened, and water levels fell dramatically, causing chaos in food webs. Salt water replaced fresh water in the canals, and by 1997 scientists noticed that salt water was seeping into the Biscayne Aquifer, South Florida's water source.

In the 1940s, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, a freelance writer and former reporter for ''The Miami Herald

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