Everglades Pinelands News Report
A news report for school.
Purple Galinule. Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida. 27 November 2012
On the Everglades Trail, part 1
The Everglades Trail is a project initiated by Wilderness Graphics, Inc., the Florida Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Friends of Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. The Trail was introduced by U.S. Senator Bob Graham and created with the support of Office of Greenways and Trails, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Transportation Environmental Management Office, with the assistance of Visit Florida and participation of local, state, and federal agencies.
This 300-mile auto tour route connects people with the nature and history of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem through twenty sites offering accessible opportunities for people to explore the natural wonders of their public lands.
For more info, trail map and links:
This film won the 2004 Telly Award in the categories of half-hour documentaries.
Pam Forrester of Three Star Production in cooperation with Wilderness Graphics and the South Florida Water Management District poduced this video. Marvin Cook of Wilderness Graphics served as the executive producer.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4 (credits):
Full video (27 minutes):
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To find the costs of literature reprinting and trail maintenance needs, an educational and entertaining 2-disc enhanced CD set was produced and released in January 2004. Proceedings from the sale of this CD set will be used to support Trail expenses. One CD features interesting stories narrated by CBS Sunday Morning anchor Charles Osgood, as well as interviews with people who live and work in the region. Jimmy Buffet and eleven other talented Florida muscians contributed songs for the second CD, providing diverse musical interpretations of the Everglades. See:
Pineland Trail Running Festival
I made this promo for the Pineland Trail Running Festival in my video production class. They chose this video to run on tv.
EverGlades National Park, Mahogany Hammock Trail, Walk Through
This is a re-master of my walk through of the Mahogany Hammock Trail in the Florida EverGlades, what you see is what you get.
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Florida Trail: Panhandle Trace Hike 2013
Two-minute trailer from the 9-day hike from the Alabama state line south across NW Florida to the Gulf of Mexico. Several people completed the entire trail, camping each night, while others did parts. The Western Gate Chapter of Florida Trail Association sponsors the annual hike of the NW terminus of the Florida National Scenic Trail. This was Peggy Grantham's 10th and last time leading the adventure as trail angel. Rain, fire, and military missions forced challenging changes in plans. For detailed descriptions, links to Meetup, photos and Facebook pages see
long pine key: everglades national aprk
this is a shot of the finger glades along the long pine key trail in everglades national park
Long Pine Key Trail. Florida Everglades.
Address - State Road 9336. Cross Street - Main Park Road/State Road 9336. Homestead, Florida.
The Trailhead, take the Main Park Road from the Homestead Entrance, make a left into the Long Pine Key Area, Trailhead comes up on the left. Several unmaintained trails offshoot this Trail. Poisonous
snakes in area....the one in video is Pigmy Rattlesnake, other ones include Canebrake Rattlesnake, Coral Snake, Copperhead, Cottonmouth, Eastern Diamondback.
The Pine Flatwoods of SWFL
This is for those of you sitting at home that don’t even care about this kind of stuff at all. Well anyway you should care because this ecosystem is right here in our own backyard...so watch it and gain some interesting insights about the Pine Flatwoods. (The florida panther is an umbrella species but for this class we have classified it as a keystone species).
The Everglades at Long Pine Campground
2013 Kathy's Video
Pa-hay-okee Overlook in the Everglades
The view from the Pa-hay-okee Overlook in the Everglades National Park in Florida.
Calusa Heritage Trail, Pineland, Pine Island, Florida, USA
Calusa Heritage Trail, Pineland, Florida
27th December, 2013
United States
Trail Raiders of Southwest Florida
Florida chapter of The National Trail Raiders Association. Just some of the fun we have doing the Jeep points race.
Everglades National Park
11-22-14: Then we moved on to our main destination: Everglades National Park. This whole area at the end southern tip of Florida was an area I had never been to before even though I had lived in Florida from 1998-2002. I had only been to the northern area with my sisters in 2001. So all of this was pretty new to me.
It was overcast, yet the temperature was pretty good with a breeze. We first hit the Ernest F. Coe Visitor’s Center and then started to check out the various hiking trails and boardwalks at Royal Palm (Anhinga Trail and Gumbo Limbo Trail), Long Pine Key, Pinelands, and Pay-hay-okee Overlook. Since it was getting late in the afternoon, we then headed down to the very end of the road to Eco Pond and Flamingo Visitor’s Center before it closed at 4:30 p.m. We were at the very southern end tip of Florida (not counting the keys). They had a “Mosquito Meter” there with a rating of “Horrible”. The mosquitoes were only bad at the Flamingo area though. And the strong breeze helped keep the mosquitoes away. Then we backtracked to West Lake, which had a wonderful boardwalk through mangroves. Finally, our last stop was Mahogany Hammock.
The sun peaked out at this point and seemed like it was going to get clearer. But… then the rain came back. But at least we got done everything we wanted to get done for the day.
Florida Road Trip: Kayaking Flamingo
This morning I took the main road through Everglades national park. This road has been called 38 miles of nothing”. It’s thrue
No This road is interesting it passes through every major natural habitat,
• pinelands,
• sawgrass marshes,
• cypress domes,
• sloughs
• and mangroves
This road ends at the campground on Florida Bay. Where this camp is absolutely full of mosquitoes.
I Drove slowly, and I stopped often because there are numerous hiking trails.
During these trails I tried to watch, recognize and understand wildlife.
But it’s so difficult to identify all the different birds and other animals.
There are plenty of push-off points, all with names that sound terrible like Hell’s Bay , the Nightmare , Snake Bight and Graveyard Creek .
But today most of them are closed due to the mosquitoes.
At Flamingo city my guide book said : the real joy here in this part of the park is canoeing into the bracken heart of the swamp. But becareful to the snakes and the crocodiles. Whaoo.
So I quicly checked my guide book. There are four types of poisonous snake here, in the Everglades:
• diamondback rattlesnake
• pigmy rattlesnake
• cottonmouth or water moccasin which swims along the surface of water;
• and the coral snake. He wear long thick socks and lace-up boots
Oh, and now there are Burmese pythons.
Some Pet owners who couldn’t handle their pythons have dumped the animals into the swamp,
This big snakes are now adapted like…well, a tropical snake to a subtropical forest.
The python is an invasive species that is badly mucking up the natural order of things. Like in the Alien film !
But for instant, for me the biggest problem is the mosquitoes. If you come here, you can’t overestimate the problem of mosquito. They are, by far, the park’s worst feature, the worst problem.
While in most national parks there are warning signs showing the forest-fire risk, here the charts show the mosquito level.
In summer and fall, the sign almost always says ‘extremely high.’
Here in Flamingo I was attacked upon the second I opened my car door.
I think the only protections are 100% deet repelant. But I couldn’t find this product in Florida city.. I bought one in wallmart and it was only a 40% deet.
Everglades National Park - Florida
Everglades National Park is only a one hour drive from the hustle and bustle of Miami, but the park encompasses 1.5 million acres of tropical and subtropical habitat with one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. It was for this very reason that Congress established the Everglades as a National Park in 1934. The park has since been designated as an International Biosphere Reserve, a Wetland of International Importance and a World Heritage Site.
At least one million people from all over the world visit the Everglades each year. There are three main entry points: the Gulf Coast Visitor Center, which is closest to Naples and south of Everglades city; the Shark Valley area that can be accessed by US 41 (also known as the Tamiami Trail); and the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center, the park’s main headquarters.
The Florida Everglades are home to a diverse array of wildlife within the park’s five different habitats: the Hammock, Mangrove, Pineland, Sawgrass, and Slough. Notable Everglades animals include tree frogs, alligators, the American crocodile, manatee, Key deer, otters, and the Florida panther. The park is located along avian migratory routes, so birding is also a popular activity.
Everglades National Park - The Anhinga Trail and Alligators Video (Everglades, Florida)
We decided to try and see some alligators (as we were in Florida afterall!), so it seemed the best place to visit was The Everglades and The Anhinga Trail seemed to have a good rep online! Needless to say, we saw a fair few gators on the way! They give you free vulture car-protecting tarps in the parking lot lol! Apparently they love rubber! Damn vultures, they'd eat anything!
The Everglades (or Pa-hay-okee) is a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin and part of the neotropic ecozone. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles (97 km) wide and over 100 miles (160 km) long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state. The Everglades experience a wide range of weather patterns, from frequent flooding in the wet season to drought in the dry season. Writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas popularized the term River of Grass to describe the sawgrass marshes, part of a complex system of interdependent ecosystems that include cypress swamps, the estuarine mangrove forests of the Ten Thousand Islands, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rockland, and the marine environment of Florida Bay.
Human habitation in the southern portion of the Florida peninsula dates to 15,000 years ago. Before European colonization, the region was dominated by the native Calusa and Tequesta tribes. With Spanish colonization, both tribes declined gradually during the following two centuries. The Seminole formed from mostly Creek people who had been warring to the North; they assimilated other peoples and created a new culture. After being forced from northern Florida into the Everglades during the Seminole Wars of the early 19th century, they adapted to the region and were able to resist removal by the United States Army.
Migrants to the region who wanted to develop plantations first proposed draining the Everglades in 1848, but no work of this type was attempted until 1882. Canals were constructed throughout the first half of the 20th century, and spurred the South Florida economy, prompting land development. In 1947, Congress formed the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, which built 1,400 miles (2,300 km) of canals, levees, and water control devices. The Miami metropolitan area grew substantially at this time and Everglades water was diverted to cities. Portions of the Everglades were transformed into farmland, where the primary crop was sugarcane. Approximately 50 percent of the original Everglades has been developed as agricultural or urban areas.
Following this period of rapid development and environmental degradation, the ecosystem began to receive notable attention from conservation groups in the 1970s. Internationally, UNESCO and the Ramsar Convention designated the Everglades a Wetland Area of Global Importance. The construction of a large airport 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Everglades National Park was blocked when an environmental study found that it would severely damage the South Florida ecosystem. With heightened awareness and appreciation of the region, restoration began in the 1980s with the removal of a canal that had straightened the Kissimmee River. However, development and sustainability concerns have remained pertinent in the region. The deterioration of the Everglades, including poor water quality in Lake Okeechobee, was linked to the diminishing quality of life in South Florida's urban areas. In 2000 the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was approved by Congress to combat these problems. To date, it is the most expensive and comprehensive environmental restoration attempt in history, but its implementation has faced political complications.
Video Title: Everglades National Park - The Anhinga Trail and Alligators Video (Everglades, Florida)
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Flyover of Western edge of Everglades National Park near Chekika
this was taken on the way back from a Meleluca control project hack n squirt in a hammock near chekika
Smith Mound, Pineland, Pine Island, Calusa Village
Smith Mound, Pineland, Pine Island, Calusa Village. This burial mound was an island surrounded by a moat and lake, in 1885, archaeologist A.E. Douglass described the mound as fully 35 feet high and with a base diameter of some 300 feet. We are fortunate to have the written eyewitness accounts of the Spaniards who explored this area and much of coastal Florida in the decades and centuries after the first Columbian landings. What is not clear from the written record archaeologists have guessed at based on that record and the archaeological evidence.
Scientists have concluded that there were at least 40 Calusa villages of varying sizes and import along the coast of Southwest Florida, although there is no way of determining how many more there may have been. They were shell mound builders like all pre-Columbian Florida Indians and they were pretty much bad asses to whom the contiguous tribes paid tribute to keep them mollified.
What we don’t know is at least as compelling as what we do. Limiting that statement to just this site for the purpose of brevity, we know this site was more extensive than what we’re able to walk on today but we have no idea exactly how much of this island was covered by this village. Was this remaining mound complex the primary area of the village used by the chief and the leaders of society, or was it simply a well preserved example of the manner in which every Indian in the village lived? We know from other sites that most if not all of a village’s inhabitants lived on manmade elevations to escape the mosquitoes, maximize the breezes, and as protection again flooding. We also know that the arrival of European man on this continent brought immediate and extensive farming which required the levelling of the ground and we also know the only reasons these Pineland mounds remain, including the burial mound area, is due to the far sightedness, preservationist efforts and generosity of a few individuals at the latter 19th and early 20thcenturies. My own supposition is the whole island would have been criss-crossed with these mounds and that the entire island was home to thousands of Calusa Indians for many centuries, a center of power, industry and life brought to its end by European diseases and Creek and Yamasee opportunism.
Corps of Engineers postpones Everglades project
Elizabeth Harrington reports