Everglades National Park is situated on the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula. The park is bounded by the Gulf of Mexico to the west, the Tamiami Trail and mostly state lands to the north and the Florida Keys to the south and south-east. It includes most of Florida Bay. The biosphere reserve includes Dry Tortugas National Park, a group of seven coral reefs and surrounding shoals, coral reefs and waters.
Everglades National Park is a shallow basin tilted to the south-west and underlain by extensive Pleistocene limestone with oolitic and bryozoan facies. The park serves as a vital recharge area for the Biscayne Aquifer, a major source of freshwater for Miami and south-east Florida. It lies at the interface between temperate and subtropical America and between fresh and brackish water, shallow bays and deeper coastal waters, thus creating a complex of habitats supporting a high diversity of flora and fauna. The area of transition from freshwater (glades) to saltwater (mangrove) is a highly productive zone that incubates great numbers of economically valuable crustacea. The vegetation and flora of south Florida have fascinated scientists and naturalists since their discovery and were a primary reason for the establishment of the park. One cause of this fascination is the presence of a high percentage of West Indian species. A noteworthy feature is the rather high degree of local endemism. Hammocks or tree islands are dominated by hardwood species of both tropical and temperate affinities. The most important trees are mangroves, taxa, slash pine and cypress. Prairies can be dominated by sawgrass, muhley grass, or cordgrass in coastal areas.The park is rich in both prehistoric and historic heritage: it contains 200 known archaeological sites. A Native American group, the Miccosukee tribe of Florida, has a special use permit area inside the park. Fort Jefferson, in Dry Tortugas National Park, is the largest brick masonry fort in America. It was large enough to garrison 1,500 men, but was never involved in battle, although it did secure a post for Union forces during the Civil War and afterwards served as a prison. The park’s northern boundary is retained by the Miccosukee Indians under a special use permit for community development.
History and Culture of Everglades National Park
Water in south Florida once flowed freely from the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee and southward over low-lying lands to the estuaries of Biscayne Bay, the Ten Thousand Islands, and Florida Bay. This shallow, slow-moving sheet of water covered almost 11,000 square miles, creating a mosaic of ponds, sloughs, sawgrass marshes, hardwood hammock, and forested uplands. For thousands of years this intricate system evolved into a finely balanced ecosystem that formed the biological infrastructure for the southern half of the state. However, to early colonial settlers and developers the Everglades were potential farm land and communities. By the early 1900s, the drainage process to transform wetland to land ready to be developed was underway. The results would be severely damaging to the ecosystem and the species it supported.
With the support of many early conservationists, scientists, and other advocates, Everglades National Park was established in 1947 to conserve the natural landscape and prevent further degradation of its land, plants, and animals. Although the captivation of the Everglades has mostly stemmed from its unique ecosystem, an alluring human story of the Everglades is deeply interwoven with its endless marshes, dense mangroves, towering palms, alligator holes, and tropical fauna. Various groups and people navigated through and wrestled with the watery landscape to make it home, and even to exploit its natural wonder at times. On these pages you can discover more about the Native Americans that existed and thrived; the agricultural development and drainage of the Everglades; the people and groups who advocated for the conservation of the area; the Everglades’ role in United States War efforts; the preservation and restoration work that continues today; and much more.
Everglades Landforms
To many people the name “Everglades” conjures up images of a deep, dark swamp. And while swamps exist in the Everglades, particularly in the Big Cypress National Preserve, most of the land area of the park is quite different from that. Very different types of land and vegetation can be found in the park, often dependent on how high the land lies and where differences of a few feet have substantial effects.
Sawgress Marsh The heart of the Everglades is the vast sawgrass marshes, the largest of its kind in the world. Prior to the engineering efforts of the human residents of Florida, these marshes were once part of a huge, shallow river 50 miles wide and 120 miles long running from Lake Okeechobee in the north to Florida Bay in the south. Noted naturalist and defender of the Everglades Marjorie Stoneman Douglas appropriately termed these areas the “River of Grass.” This river was created from overflowing water from the lake running slowly–on the order of a foot or so a minute–across the slightly inclined floor of south Florida. From a geological perspective, this environment and the Everglades themselves are quite young, perhaps 5000 years.Everglades National Park is a Beautiful Place For Vacations.
Mangrove Swamp In areas near the coast where the salt water of the gulf and Florida Bay meets the fresh water traveling from Lake Okechobee is realm of the mangrove trees. These trees prefer brackish water, and are responsible for creation of much new land because their roots and trunks trap organic material in the water. Mangrove swamps cover more than 500 square miles in the park.The photograph below shows Buttonwood Canal through the mangrove groves. This channel was built by the National Park Service and was somewhat controversial as it allow salt water from Florida Bay to enter Coot Pond and White water Bay.
Coastal Prairie One other type of landform found in the extreme southern section of the park is the coastal prairie, shown below. These areas contain meadows and woodlands of buttonwood, gumbo limbo, hardwoods of other types, yucca, and grasses.Another photograph of coastal prairie lands, just north of Eco Pond in the Flamingo area, is shown below.
Gators
If there is any animal which is synonymous with a national park it is surely the American alligator and the Everglades. The largest of about 50 reptile species in the Everglades, this animal can be found in many places throughout the park in large numbers.This reptile is a remnant of the Mesozoic era (245-65 million years ago). It is America’s largest reptile, reaching as much as 16 feet in length for males and 8-9 feet for females. The largest gator ever measured was a 19 foot 2 inch monster in 1890, although it is rare to find one today greater than 14 feet. In the wild, male alligators may live about 30-35 years.No matter how many alligators may appear on the front of golf shirts, the alligator’s skin is black, not green. The dark color enables the cold blooded animal to absorb the sun’s heat and warm its body. The hide contains hundreds of rectangular scales as well as bony plates, called scutes. Its distinctive “armor-plated” skin which it depends on for defense is made of keratin, similar to human fingernails.But the skin of the alligator (particular the non-plated areas on the underside of the neck and stomach) was once responsible for the near extinction of the animal, as they were hunted to produce alligator purses, boots, and other goods Holidays in USA. Everglades National Park is awesome park. Hunting began in 1855, and it is estimated that at least 10 million hides were processed between 1870 and 1965. Hunters (and later poachers) would hunt the animals at night and fire at the reflection of torches in the alligator’s eyes. Hunting of these creatures occurred from the mid-1880’s until the 1960’s but of course is no longer permitted in the park. Although the alligator once existed in far greater numbers in the glades, the alligator population has recovered nicely and it is no longer classified as an endangered species, although the disappearance of alligator habitat continues to cause concern for the long term well-being of the species.