The South Everglades

We ventured into the southern part of the glades. Everglades National Park… just south of the campground where we are staying. The entrance is just west of Florida City, on Rt. 9336. The areas we liked the most were “Royal Palm” and the “Anhinga Trail”, the “Pa-hay-okee” overlook, and the “Pinelands”. We had visited “Shark Valley” a couple of weeks ago and want to see a little more diversity. We were not disappointed. There are vast differences in the park ranging from Royal Palm to the Pa-hay-okee overlook. Our first stop was the Visitor Center, and than onto Royal Palm. This part of the park has a large viewing area along natural waterways, grasslands and larger deeper waterholes that support lots of birds and gators. Having been raised in a more rural area, my knowledge of gators was mostly limited to that wonderful source of information…. Tv & Movies…. once again proving, that the truth and reality are mostly victims when it comes to the “boob-tube”… hence the nick-name. We all no doubt grew up fearing the terribly aggressive alligator… he will chase you… bit you… and at minimum, do you fearful harm, if not kill you! The truth is that alligators could really care less about you… so long as you leave them alone! I was amazed that hundreds of people a day, walk within 20-30 feet of most gators, sometimes as close as 10 feet (15 is recommended), and the gators do not care. They will avoid you as much as possible. They do not want to waste their precious energy on humans that are not considered a food source. They will appear is be aggressive if you do something stupid and bother them. So basically, if you got bit… you really had to do something stupid. No one has ever gotten bit on the trails. They said that a small child, riding a bike accidently went off the paved path, down the grassy slop into the water ( only 6 foot from the path) …. a gator grabbed the child and than let go. Gators taste the prospective prey by lightly holding in their mouth. Having no taste for people, the gator let go and the child and was picked up by the parents. The whole episode took only seconds and the child was unharmed. Since the gators are in a natural habitat that has a well balanced food chain, the gators are really not interested in anything other than their normal food sources…. birds, fish, snakes, and turtles… smaller things they can kill and easily swallow whole. We were told that the only really dangerous gators are those that have gotten out of their natural habitat and wondered into rural areas, via the waterways, do not have the food sources that they had in the wild, get desperate, or have been fed by people, and thus making them aggressive and dangerous to small animals & children. Onto the birds… this eco system supports a wide variety of bird life… with habitat and food sources. The “Anhinga Trail” is a great place to start… especially to see wildlife. Some of the paved trail is right along the waterways and wetlands… some is on raised walkways over the wetlands… and some is raised high over the deeper larger ponds that provide a great gator habitat. You will see lots of fish, birds and gators here… as well as the wide variety of grasses, bushes, trees, wildflowers… all in a natural habitat setting… with little or no barriers (except the raised walkway & deck) between you and the wilderness. There are plenty of things to be watchful for aside from the gators. Poisonous snakes, poisonous plants, poisonous spiders and scorpions, and poisonous trees. The snakes, spiders, and scorpions… well… you will probably never see them… they want to avoid you as much as you want to avoid them. The poisonous plants and trees… well… that’s up to you. Moving on to a different habitat, the water slough areas (pronounced “slew”). The freshwater slough starts 100 miles to the north from Lake Okeechobee. The slough is a shallow sheet of water moving slowly over the grasslands that feeds the glades and goes all the way to the Gulf. The are a variety of habitats in and around the slough. Slightly elevate islands call '”Hardwood Hammocks” that are basically somewhat dry land with hardwood trees and bushes. The freshwater marl prairie that has grassland marshy areas that support tall pine in drier areas and bald cypress trees in wetter areas. Near Pa-hay-okee overlook you get to see the drastic difference within a short walk of 200 feet… here the slough is only 8 miles wide…. upstream it reaches 50 miles wide and is mostly 3-6 inches deep on wet grasslands. One of the high points is Rock Creek Pass… elevation… 3 feet. All along the way you can see out cropping of the great coral limestone slab that under lays the entire area. “Solution Holes” dot the land both under the water, creating deep water areas and on the land creating holes about 3 foot deep and ranging from 1 foot to 10-15 foot craters, usually filled with vegetation and sometimes water. It seems that most of the watery grasslands and the “Hammocks” are just inches about the coral limestone. Everything seems to be mainly growing in 3-6 inches of sandy soil. There is lots of natures beauty to see everywhere, and educational information to satisfy the novelist to the avid environmentalist. Either way, a trip to the everglades is enjoyable and educational. On the downside, human development is increasingly reducing the wildlife and their habitat. One good example is the nesting water birds, which has declined 93% since the 1930’s. What a sight it must have been then! So…. what are you waiting for? See it now… and enjoy it while you can. Enjoy the trip… we certainly did!
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