The Tibet-Butler Preserve is a county park located on the shore of Lake Butler, southwest of

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

. It is managed by the

Orange County Parks and Recreation Orange County Parks and Recreation is the county park department in Orange County, Florida, United States. It maintains and operates a number of parks, multiuse trails, and community recreation centers. List of parks *Arcadia Acres Park *Avalon/Mai ...

History

The land for Tibet-Butler Preserve was acquired in 1986 and 1987 using funds from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund and the Water Management Lands Trust Fund.

Recreation

Tibet-Butler Preserve contains a nature center, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) of trails, a picnic area, a butterfly garden, and a wheelchair-accessible sandbox. The nature center is called the Vera Carter Environmental Center, named after the Orange County Commissioner from 1980 to 1992. It is home to a number of exhibits including live animals, taxidermy, and interactive displays.

Wildlife

The area consists of a variety of habitats, including bay swamps, marshes, cypress swamps, pine flatwoods, and scrub. Wildlife includes

gopher tortoise The gopher tortoise (''Gopherus polyphemus'') is a species of tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species is native to the southeastern United States. The gopher tortoise is seen as a keystone species because it digs burrows that provide ...

s, North American river otters, nine-banded armadillos, american alligators,

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

and

brown anole The brown anole (''Anolis sagrei''), also known commonly as the Cuban brown anole, or De la Sagra's anole, is a species of lizard in the family Dactyloidae. The species is native to Cuba and the Bahamas. It has been widely introduced elsewhere, ...

six-lined racerunner The six-lined racerunner (''Aspidoscelis sexlineatus'') is a species of lizard native to the United States and Mexico. Geographic range The six-lined racerunner is found throughout much of the southeastern and south-central portion of the United ...

s, and over 100 species of birds including

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

, and

eastern screech owl The eastern screech owl (''Megascops asio'') or eastern screech-owl, is a small typical owl, owl that is relatively common in Eastern North America, from Mexico to Canada. This species is native to most wooded environments of its distribution, a ...

s. Tibet-Butler Preserve is a site on the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail.

Access and hours of operation

Tibet-Butler Preserve is located at 8777 Winter Garden Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL 32836. It is open daily, from 8:00am - 6:00pm. Trails are occasionally closed due to flooding.

References

{{reflist Parks in Orange County, Florida