The Watery Rave

Highlands County

February 21, 2012

Since embarking on this expedition on the southern tip of the Florida peninsula we’ve kayaked, biked, hiked, waded and meandered our way up through the middle of the state, side-stepping our way west of Lake Okeechobee up to Highlands County, in south central Florida.

After leaving the Caloosahatchee River ten days ago, we’ve cut our path across properties with existing conservation easements, and it’s good to know the land owners have this commitment to the natural environment. From the protection of water in the Fisheating Creek watershed to habitat mitigation banks for the gopher tortoise, these often voluntary agreements between a private land owner and a government agency are designed to conserve open space, water recharge areas, environmentally sensitive lands, wildlife habitat or historic features on a specific parcel of land, essentially offsetting the environmental impacts of development. In short, they are small parcels of often undevelopable land that when combined create a massive niche for nature.

Our trek through the opportunity area for the Babcock to Fisheating Creek corridor was not easy as we humped our backpacks down old firebreaks that were more ankle-trap than dirt road. It’s been unseasonably hot for February, even in Florida, with temperatures hinging in the 80s every day and most of the group reeking of bug spray and BO.

We spent the better part of a day in Glades County doing our imitation of trail foraging which is how I know where the term “bushwhacked” originated and ultimately found our way east from Babcock Ranch through intact habitat all the way to south Highlands County. Multiple black bears that the University of Kentucky (myself included) tracked with GPS collars during a five year period made this same trek, making long movements west before ultimately turning around and heading back to Glades and Highlands Counties. We’ve seen no bears so far, unless you count Elam, who while sleeping does a pretty good Yogi imitation.

As we entered bear project stomping grounds at the Smoak Ranch near Venus, I realized that with the exception of a short stroll through Palmdale, I have been walking on conservation land for three days, yet still see nothing but trees on the horizon. Despite the years I’ve spent studying this landscape, until I physically trudged my way over it, I did not fully appreciate the volume of these connections to nature that remain intact. Certainly more can be done to ensure viable corridors for large animals exist in perpetuity, but what we experienced suggested that the habitat in Charlotte, Glades and south Highlands County is still suitable for traveling wildlife.

The gathered bear data from Highlands County supports this belief. Through cooperative efforts between ranchers and agencies this part of the Florida Wildlife Corridor stands a good chance of remaining in existence, which equates to the wildlife remaining true to their habitats and instincts as natural members of the Florida landscape.

My appreciation for the role of the private landowner in conservation began to take shape after coming to know one family in particular, onto whose land we finally crossed at midday Saturday. The Smoak family helped get the bear project started, through a relationship the family had with my former boss, Dave Maehr. Dave was an outspoken proponent of the idea that private landowners were key to the conservation of the Florida panther.

As we walked across the Smoak cattle pasture I stepped over the entrance to the home of a burrowing owl, a tiny, long-legged owl that owns the local lizard, frog and insect population. Along the way we found the remains of two unfortunate June beetles, skewered on the barbed wire fence by loggerhead shrike, a small bird that takes out its lack of talons on insects and lizards by crucifying them on thorns or barbed wire before eating them. As we made our way west toward the Smoak camphouse, we passed by a tall pine tree, the location where went from theoretical scientist to experienced bear researcher after catching the first bear of my career.

Tracee Smoak, the wife of Mason Smoak, the pilot who died with Dave Maehr in 2008 while conducting aerial surveys of the black bears in the area, met us at the camphouse. Their three children ran among the pines and clumps of palmetto, chasing each other and squealing.

Even with the tragedy still in the back of my mind, the full circle way of things began to push itself into my thoughts. This is a territory I know and love, and I, like Mason and Dave, take great satisfaction from knowing that it is and will likely always be in good hands. One door may have shut, but another one is opened as the children build their memories of the natural environment that is the Smoak cattle pasture.

January 31, 2012: Day 16

Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge

Created in 1989, the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge is 26,400 acres of prime wildlife chilling zone about 20 miles east of Naples and just north of the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. Very little of the refuge is open to public access, allowing the animals to interact in a natural environment free from ringing cell phones, clicking cameras and speeding stegosaurus-sized SUV’s.

Our access to the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge was through an I-75 underpass designed to facilitate the movement of wildlife and water. We began at Picayune Strand State Forest and hiked north to the highway, beyond which lies the Panther Refuge. We’d spent the previous afternoon meeting with Florida Department of Forestry officials discussing a large-scale water restoration project underway at that property.

Alligator Alley is one of the major south Florida east/west expressways. Originating on the east coast just north of Hollywood, it runs first through the Everglades Conservation areas, then through the Big Cypress National Park, across the state to Naples, before jogging north through Charlotte Harbor and Tampa before becoming the main north/south route through the heart of America and into eastern Michigan. At one time, this high-speed asphalt passage across the state had no barriers to keep the wildlife from entering the roadway and veering off the road meant a quick dip in the shoulder-side canal. The wildlife underpasses were integrated into Alligator Alley during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and by the end of construction there were 36 wildlife underpasses, 8 feet tall, 70 feet wide and 100 feet long. Ten foot chain link fences now bracket the roadside canals, funneling wildlife toward the passages and catching errant drivers like a metallic spider web. The $77 million project accomplished its goal of increasing the safety of wildlife and vehicles.

In 1990, state biologists estimated that there were roughly 30 panthers left in the wild, but since the underpass construction, panther roadkill numbers on the Alley have dropped dramatically. In the same span of time, through focused habitat conservation efforts by the state of Florida and federal government, panther population estimates have increased. There is also good evidence that the introduction of Texas cougars in the mid-1990s provided a genetic jump-start that benefited panther demographics. Today the panther estimate ranges between 100 and 160 cats.

There are other factors that have contributed to the improvement in the Florida panther population. The reduction of panther roadkills may also have to do with increased awareness by motorists and better signage and speed limit enforcement. Just this year the FDOT began placing Roadside Animal Detection Systems–solar powered signs that use flashing LED lights to alert drivers when large animals approach the road. Even with these preventative measures, 43 cats have been killed on Florida roads since 2009, not including the two cats that have already died in 2012.

Although the protection of Florida panthers was the primary focus for designing the underpasses, many other species have been documented using them, including Florida black bear, bobcats, alligators, turkey, deer and the occasional wayward party of conservationists. One of the most important roles of the underpasses is to facilitate the flow of water southward to the Picayune and Fakahatchee strands, assuring the natural cleansing sheet flow through the rivers of grass. Continuity with adjoining properties seems to be a theme in this landscape with multiple agencies working together to meet these challenges.

For me, the I-75 underpasses are a symbol of the conservation biology movement in the early days. Using what data there were available back in the late 1980s on the panther, scientists and policy makers helped engineer an effective solution. It was not an easy or inexpensive process, but appears to have worked well.

I remember one of the first lectures I heard my late graduate school advisor and committed conservation scientist Dr. Dave Maehr give. In it he showed a slide of one of the underpasses and talked about the difficulty of getting the structures paid for, a process he was involved in as the leader of the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission’s (which is now the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission or FWC) panther research team. Maehr matriculated at the University of Florida under Dr. Larry Harris, one of the central figures in the field of conservation biology in the 1980s and 1990s, when it became recognized as a scholarly discipline. Both Dr. Maehr and Dr. Harris were shrewd negotiators capable of compromising in order to achieve meaningful conservation goals.

Dr. Harris oversaw the work of many other students who went on to become influential figures in Florida and across the globe, the most prominent of which is Dr. Reed Noss, who in the late 1980s was the first to propose a network of connected conservation land in Florida, and has since written many articles and chapters on wildlife corridors and designing conservation land networks to conserve biodiversity. In the last 20 years, other students of Dr. Harris including Dr. Tom Hoctor and Dr. Dan Smith have worked on projects like the Florida Ecological Greenways Network and the prioritization of roadways for future wildlife underpasses to continue the work towards protecting a statewide network of functionally connected public and private conservation lands, aided by a future comprehensive system of wildlife crossing structures across Florida’s large network of highways.

Another of Dr. Harris’ former students was waiting to meet us at the underpass. Darrell Land of FWC eventually replaced Dave Maehr as the panther recovery team leader after Maehr left the agency to pursue a Ph.D. in conservation biology, and has been in the position now for nearly 20 years. As we approached the underpass in the bright morning we saw Land walking toward us, along with Kevin Godsea, the refuge manager for USFWS, and Laurie MacDonald of Defenders of Wildlife. Together the group represented many years of experience in panther biology and policy decisions. As if to remind us of the need to maintain our effort and our focus despite the challenge and high cost of protecting the species and its landscape, a perfectly preserved pair of panther tracks, one male, one female, were waiting in the dried out mud of the underpass.

January 28, 2012

FAKAHATCHEE STRAND PRESERVE

By Joe Guthrie

It was well after dark when we arrived at our destination, a small private inholding in Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. A carload of friends from Tampa arrived and met us near the end of the route. We traveled on bikes, following a little road north from Jane’s Scenic Trail about 2.5 miles before it opened into a tiny clearing.

I could see the silhouettes of wild-growing royal palms towering in the dark. Cypress knees stood in dark water off the road on both sides. On the edge of a two acre lake was a tin shack with a porch and swing, a classic swamp hunting cabin. On the door was a plaque that read “Welcome to the Fakahatchee Hilton.”

We bathed on the porch under frigid water drawn from a well through an old green hand pump then put on warm clean clothes as someone lit a campfire. Dinner was steaks and collard greens.

Our camphouse was simple, weather-beaten, swampy. It smelled of peat. It had a big porch on the front with a swing, and a balky screen door into a single room. The corrugated tin siding was streaked with rust.

There were big wild animals moving around somewhere near. The Florida black bear is common here. The night was still as we settled in to sleep. Somewhere in the night I woke and heard a pair of barred owls calling back and forth from a tree above the camphouse clearing, slipping into their bizarre laughter, their silhouettes bobbing rhythmically toward each other in the branches. In the night it felt like a far corner of the world.

On Sunday, we had another day of no traveling, but we had a busy dance card. First, our friends Clyde and Niki Butcher arrived at our cabin. Elam and the Butchers have been very close for many years and have spent years of their lives together photographing Florida’s swamps. We spent the late morning and early afternoon wading through the swamp north of the cabin, on a mission to find the Guzmania, a rare genus of bromeliad. We stepped into the cool swamp where the walking was easy, though we moved slowly to avoid tripping on tree roots beneath the surface.

Eventually we gathered in a small area where the cypress knees and pop ash were adorned with light green bromeliads. They clung to every surface. Carlton and Clyde worked through several sequences of photographs.

In the afternoon our party expanded to include Renee Rau, Mike Owen, and Donna Glann Smyth from Florida State Parks, and Tom Maish from Friends of Fakahatchee. They tracked us into the swamp where we all stood knee deep in the stained water. I was intent to talk to Mike Owen, a man whose personality is matched by an expansive natural history knowledge. Mike has worked at Fakahatchee since 1992, leading interpretive swamp walks, monitoring air plants and orchids as well as other species, and guiding management activity like prescribed fire and the removal of invasive species. He knows the Fakahatchee Strand like no one else.

It was in his first 6 months on the job that the infamous John Laroche was caught taking rare orchids from the swamp. At the time, Mike Owen was new to the swamp and its hidden gems. He told me that Laroche was so cavalier about his exploits that as he stood surrounded by garbage bags full of the poached flowers that day and gave an impromptu field lesson, teaching the young biologist several species of orchid. The Laroche story was eventually made into a book by Susan Orleans called “The Orchid Thief,” and subsequently, the movie “Adaptation.”

After lunch we trekked into an area called the Western Slough. It was more open than the thick, jungle-like growth we found among the Guzmania, and the water snaked through tall cypress and entered a stand of pond apple. Mike told us that Fakahatchee’s unique airplants are supported by slow moving water flowing through a trench in the limestone substrate of south Florida. Beneath the protective canopy of bald cypress, the water remains cooler than the ambient temperature in the warm months and warmer during the cold months. The effect of this shielding from extreme cold is that the forest is able to support species that do not occur elsewhere on the North American continent.

He’d taken us here to show us the orchids. Ghost orchid, dingy orchid (Mike is known to spit dramatically at the ground when repeating this unfortunate name), clamshell orchid…they are all there, including one dingy orchid that John Laroche had taken, and Mike had returned, lashing it to a tree two feet above the water. It’s the only one of 84 that survived. Many of the plants we saw have been alive in the swamp since before Mike Owen began working here.

The Fakahatchee Strand is a geologic feature, extending roughly 20 miles north and south, and roughly 5 miles wide. The northern extent is on Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, which we’d be visiting later in the week. It was easy to think about the landscape connection as we stood knee deep in the swamp with our naturalist friends. From where we stood the water fed south into the Ten Thousand Islands, one of the most important commercial fisheries in the United States near Everglades City. Around our legs the dark water slipped past us with an almost imperceptible slowness.

For more information on the Fakahatchee and Florida’s State Parks @ http://www.floridastateparks.org/fakahatcheestrand/

By Joe Guthrie

January 26, 2012: Days 9 and 10

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week Carlton, Elam and I camped on and documented a remote tree island in Francis Taylor Wildlife Management Area north of SR 41 in Water Conservation Area 3A. Tree islands are like mounds of earth above the water line—dry homes for everything from red ants that storm your feet and lower legs until they’re positioned in sufficient numbers that they can sound the alarm to bite and watch you do the foot-wipe dance to deer and a wide variety of wading birds.

It was a beautiful island, only a couple of acres in total and housing a small domes of trees. It was quiet too, and surrounded by clear water and stands of sawgrass where everything aquatic owned the horizon. It was good to stand with dry feet, even if the ants were forming up in ranks as they readied to attack anyone wandering to close to their mounds.

After camping for two days on the C-67 canal within earshot of SR 41, the beauty and serenity of the surrounding marsh were overwhelming. There’s a reason the Florida Indian tibes often retreated to these island oasis’.

The island we visited is one of many research sites under study by the South Florida Water Management District, led by Director of Wetland Watershed Science, Dr. Fred Sklar. Since 1998 Dr. Sklar and his squad of ecologists have been monitoring nutrient deposition, plant communities and succession, and the ecology of wildlife on tree islands. Prior to Dr. Sklar’s work, very little was known about this distinctive and prominent feature of the Everglades landscape.

Along with Dr. Sklar, a team of scientists and water management officials, including Assistant Executive Director Robert Brown, met us at mid-morning Thursday, and we spent the early afternoon huddled with us under a canopy of cocoa plum and pond apple near the head of the island, explaining to us the patterns they are uncovering with their work. Pond apples are hard and solid, more fit for weaponry than consumption. Even the ants leave them alone when the fall to the ground.

Human manipulation of water flow has interrupted the processes by which tree islands grow and survive in the Florida Everglades. Since 1940, the number of islands scattered throughout the Everglades has plummeted. In WCA-3, for example, tree island acreage is down from 24,800 acres to roughly 8100 acres, and the number of islands has fallen by almost 60%. Dr. Sklar told us things began going wrong in the 1940s, when lower levels of water in the central Everglades dissolved the layer of peat that develops on tree islands.

In the 1960s we reversed course and began raising and maintaining high water in WCA-3, which is still destructive to tree islands. High water levels inundating the dry parts of tree islands eventually kill the species that grow in the “head,” the upstream end of the island where elevation is highest and the least water-tolerant trees grow. High water also prevents the germination of seeds, leading to a loss of tree regeneration and preventing the growth of understory species and young trees that would otherwise replace older or damaged trees as they die off. Elsewhere, at the perimeters of the Everglades ecosystem canaling and water distribution have starved tree islands out of existence.

In an endless open field of grass and water, trees represent more than safety, they also hold the only shade, and when you’re frying in the Florida sun like string potatoes in a bucket of hot grease, these islands and their foliage are the only way out of the fire. We huddle in the shade, thankful for the break from this year’s unseasonably warm Florida winter.

From an ecological standpoint tree islands are the anchors for wildlife in the Everglades, providing provide roosting habitat for wading bird species and dry refuge for species of all kinds, from birds and small mammals to snakes, frogs, turtles and lizards. Whitetail deer are commonly found on tree islands. Even Florida panther and black bear have been documented on tree islands, far from their normal upland haunts making these patches of dry land the hubs of biodiversity in what is otherwise an inhospitable landscape for terrestrial wildlife.

Despite the grim prognosis, Dr. Sklar and his team of ecologists have a full plate of research ahead of them. As the the Everglades watershed changes through the back-filling and decompartmentalization projects introduced under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) of 2000, SFWMD is in position to monitor the effects on tree islands and biodiversity. At this point there seems to be agreement that less water is needed in areas such as the one where our tree island was located, while many other areas have to be re-inundated in order to restore the processes that generate tree islands.

As we rode back toward SR 41 on our visitors airboats, the first rain of the expedition began to fall. It was a short sprinkle, but it punctuated the end of our ten days in this water-bound wilderness. I was energized by the new knowledge absorbed, and by the commitment of the scientists to make sure we finally get the water right in the Everglades.

By Joe Guthrie

The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition is now off and running. The last few months are a blur of activity and frantic preparation, where we had no time to properly prepare ourselves.

We made it to the start by working insane hours, working the phone and email around through all hours of the night. The two and a half weeks between the holidays and the start of the Expedition Carlton and Elam and I all suffered from intense sleep deprivation as we hurried between meetings and our computers, buying gear, talking to our collaborators and organizing our equipment. We shopped for a trailer that could carry our kayaks, bikes, paddleboards, camera equipment. We researched specific properties, specific wildlife species and conservation issues we wanted to highlight.

The dry bags for stowing gear on our kayaks were out of stock. The wireless service provider for our portable wi-fi hotspots wanted a contract that we were not willing to pay. The rudder kits for our kayaks, which we naively thought we’d assemble ourselves, were far too involved and we needed them fixed by a pro. It seemed like one million adapter wires and batteries and connectors flooded the dining room table of Carlton’s house. Details, details, details…it was chaos.

We still had not rigged the kayak solar panels that we wanted to power our devices while we were out in the wilderness for seven days. We still had not loaded reliable satellite imagery into our GPS for our navigation, while important people would be arriving in hours to see us off.

Somehow we pulled it off. Carlton and I were both awake that last night until 5 a.m. Once the sun was us up there was no more chance to fool around with the phone or the computer. We had to load the boats and go.

Packing took until 2:30 in the afternoon–nearly two hours later than we’d intended, but we finally shoved off into the Bay. A flock of willet milled in the shallows just down the beach. The weather forecast was perfect. As I pulled through the first paddle stroke I felt relief begin to work through my system. Now we had to just go do the thing.

Day TWO: The First Full Day

Day Two of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition began at the Joe River Chickee in Everglades National Park, Florida. At least three of us (Carlton, Elam and Joe) awoke from a sleep of over four hours for the first time in weeks. The morning light came up and we saw that we were in a bowl of water about 1/4 mile wide and fish jumping near the base of the red mangrove trees all the way around our bowl. The sky was clear and there was no wind. In all, a pretty nice winter day.

Without much discussion, the morning took on a relaxed pace. We were all a little fried from the mental stresses of the preparation for our Expedition. It felt good to have left those worries behind, if only temporarily. We made breakfast with flatbread and Nutella and cream cheese with bananas. Elam tended the coffee press.

Mallory and Elam paddled out first around 11, while Carlton and I packed more slowly. As we got under way I fished a jig up next to the mangroves and caught a 12″ spotted sea trout. A slight north wind picked up. Carlton fussed with my phone and its poor service. Several times he got far ahead of me during our paddle. I decided that I still needed to work on loading my kayak properly since everyone else was faster than me. It wasn’t until later that Carlton told me that he’d been frustrated with the wind and the poor service and that his speed was due to his “paddling emotionally.”

We caught up with Mallory and Elam at the second Joe River chickee, where we’d planned to eat lunch. They’d been waiting patiently for us for some time. The next leg would involve crossing a broad stretch of Oyster Bay, where we expected to get spray from the northwest across our boats. We were running behind after Carlton and I had spent too long on our first leg. I changed into rain gear, not wanting to arrive in the dark in wet clothes at a place where we could not build fires.

We made good time across the bay and arrived at the Oyster Bay chickee in short order. It was sheltered from the open bay by a narrow island of red mangrove trees. As Elam was unloading his kayak he lost balance and toppled into the water. He was unhurt, and he’d already off loaded all of his camera equipment, so we all had a laugh as we documented the first casualty, including Elam.

Day Five–Entering The Sawgrass

An update from the team: “We are in the sawgrass in the middle of our route through the Everglades. We are on schedule and food is holding up well. At night the insects drive us into our tents, and we end up sleeping for 8 or more hours, a nice departure from the weeks of no sleep we had leading up to the start of the expedition. Poor cell service makes blogging difficult, but the signal seems to be improving, so bear with us. The scenery is unreal. Poling a kayak through the sawgrass is a true Everglades experience.”

Flamingo, Florida to The Okefenokee Swamp, South Georgia

THE ADVENTURE:

There’s a reason the majority of humans residing in Florida inhabit the coastal segments. In the land of the endless summer where flatness prevails and the entire ecosystem creeps, crawls, squirms or slithers, the coastline and its windswept break from the eternal furnace and bouts of marsh foot offer access to several of the most sensational marine ecosystems on the planet. From surfing to fishing, waterskiing to diving, coastal Florida offers an endless litany of watery recreational opportunities, yet without the advent of air conditioning even these marvels of nature would be no more than a day trip to a theme park.

Some see the interior of the Florida peninsula as a burden, a marsh-laden stretch of mosquitos, alligators, snakes and just enough things that can work their way into your orifices to keep the mainstream and alternative societies at bay. Even when packing a survivalist attitude, the interior environment is not a place the average American calls home.

That’s only because we limit the term “Average American” to the human population. For panthers, bears, wading birds, alligators, crocodiles, kites and a host of primordial flora and fauna, the interior of the state is the last frontier, a final gambit of natural selection that hasn’t been paved, planted, hijacked or drained.

THE PLAYERS:

Carlton Ward Jr:

Carlton is a conservation photographer from Tampa, Florida. His passion for nature was born from the Florida landscape, where eight generations of family history have grounded his perspective. He sees natural environments and cultural legacies as the earth’s greatest yet most threatened resources.

Carlton is a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) and founded the Legacy Institute for Nature & Culture (LINC), a non‐profit organization with the purpose of celebrating and protecting Florida’s natural and cultural heritage through art. While completing a Master’s degree in Ecology, Carlton wrote Conservation Photography, the first thesis on the emerging field. Carlton’s immediate focus is the Florida Wildlife Corridor project which he established in 2009.

Joe Guthrie:

Joe migrated to Florida while working for the University of Kentucky to document the ecology and conservation of a small population of the Florida black bear in Highlands and  Glades counties. His interest in conservation stems from an outdoor upbringing in rural Kentucky, where he hunted and fished the hollows of his family farm.

Joe collaborated on multiple research projects, focusing on neo‐tropical songbirds, Kentucky elk, before taking on the role of team leader for Florida black bear research. Joe’s master’s thesis focused on the function of corridors and highways crossings for bear movement in the fragmented landscape of south‐central Florida. Researching the wide‐ranging black bear allowed Joe and his UK colleagues to connect with ranchers and stakeholders from many backgrounds, and through their cooperation the bear project continues today. This special population of bears, centered on private land in a part of Florida that is little known to the outside world, provided the inspiration for the Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition.

Elam S. Stoltzfus:

Elam is a Producer, Director and Cinematographer of film documentaries and educational programs featuring environmental issues, educational/corporate training programs and developing projects utilizing various formats of media such as DVD, web design, social media and other media.

He is known for his educational programming and design consulting. Elam is the manager and owner of Live Oak Production Group, Inc., a High Definition professional broadcast video production company, as well as a freelance film and video producer. For the past twenty‐five years Elam has documented diverse aspects of Florida’s natural resources which include estuaries, rivers, swamps and aquatic preserves.

Mallory Lykes Dimmitt:

Mallory is a multi‐generation Floridian who grew up exploring the lands and waters of Florida. She specializes in landscape scale conservation, natural resource management, ecosystem service markets and water and energy issues.

She is a Director, Vice‐chair of the Corporate Responsibility Committee and a 5th Generation Committee member of the Florida‐based family agri‐business company, Lykes Brothers Inc. She also serves on the board of LINC, the Legacy Institute for Nature & Culture, where she previously filled the role of Interim Executive Director, and got her start in social media.

Mallory earned her B.S. in Natural Resources from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She was awarded a Doris Duke Conservation Fellowship at Duke University’s Nicholas School of Environment, where she earned a Masters of Environmental Management (MEM) in Environmental Economics and Policy, as well as a certificate in Non‐profit Management.

THE STORY:

Bike, hike, paddle or push through the Florida Everglades up to the Okefenokee Swamp, a 1,000 mile trek  through some of the nastiest, gnarliest, scariest and most beautiful, pristine terrain in southern North America. The 100-day trip through gator land and turkey sand will have the group goose-stepping around bear scat and panther tracks as they document a segment of Florida rarely seen by the average Miggy minion.

Traverse the Everglades ecosystem into Big Cypress Swamp, over to the Everglades Agricultural Area, back to the Okaloacoochee Slough, across the Caloosahatchee River, over to Babcock Ranch, back along Fisheating Creek toward Lake Okeechobee, up the Kissimmee River with excursions toward the Lake Wales Ridge, up the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, east around Orlando into Ocala National Forest, and north along the O2O corridor (Ocala to Osceola) to Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge stopping along the way to smell the sugar cane and orange peels burning, view the cowpies smoldering in psilocybin and throw rocks at the metal culverts directing water off the land.

The project kicked off January 17, with little Florida Everglades fanfare. Just a handful of egrets and a school of mullet in attendance, but nonetheless the first stop on an adventurous journey across the peninsula.