Florida's True Gifts
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BLOWING WHITE ROCKS PRESERVE IBIS MANGROVES FLORIDA’S TRUE GIFTS In a season filled with celebration, an appreciation for wild miracles BY TRACEY MINKIN LOGGERHEAD GULF SEA TURTLE ISLANDS NATIONAL SEASHORE LAKE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP, LEFT: JAMES RANDKLEV (2), DANITA DELIMONT/GETTY IMAGES, IMAGES, DELIMONT/GETTY RANDKLEV (2), DANITA JAMES LEFT: FROM TOP, CLOCKWISE CARLTON WARD/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, WRIEPEC/GETTY IMAGES, IMAGES, WRIEPEC/GETTY GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, WARD/NATIONAL CARLTON BOCA RATON PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE AND DESIGN/NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY BOCA RATON WALES RIDGE STATE FOREST 49 “ My heart swelled with uncontrollable delight” From the journal of John James Audubon, on approaching the Florida coastline blooming, the plant will drop a pod that offers the hope of progeny. These are long odds. It’s remarkable that there are any ghost orchids left at all. Call it a gift—a miraculous one—springing from a wild, wet corner of the world that overflows with strange and beautiful abundance. From creatures so small that they remain unseen to vast networks of coral ranging offshore for hundreds of miles, Florida is a parade of nature so varied that cataloging those gifts may best be done from the sky. See it from the vantage point of one of more than 500 species of birds—warblers and waterfowl, eagles and hawks, storks and ibis—that make Florida home or a AS CHRISTMAS MORNING dawns over the long and place for rest and sustenance during long and strenuous low-lying blue-green peninsula called Florida, two migrations. Imagine skimming airborne above the miracles—one imagined, one real—unfold in the sky. state’s narrow western handle, a ribbon of blindingly Both of them bestow gifts. white sands backed by forests that hold two of the The imagined miracle involves an old man and rein- world’s rarest species of evergreens. Wheel south and deer that gallop on air. The real one is this: High above survey coastlines threaded by rivers and laced with a swamp in the western Everglades, anchored to the mangrove-etched lagoons. Trace the parallel wonder— corded bark of an old-growth bald cypress tree, a ghost one on the Gulf of Mexico, one on the Atlantic Ocean—of orchid draws energy to bloom. With pale petals hover- hundreds of miles of narrow islands. Though called ing like spirits above delicate, near-invisible roots, with barriers, they might better be called nurseries: Their a beauty so ephemeral that it’s been poached to the edge pale sands, mounded into dunes and spread along the of existence, Dendrophylax lindenii clings to its host and shore, are the fragile nesting places of animals as diverse blooms in the swamp’s musky air. Protected now in as least terns, just shy of two ounces, and leatherback Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the sea turtles, sometimes half a ton. As ghost orchid blooms sometimes as the peninsula tapers southward, early as January, and sometimes see how it begins to blend with the with as many as 40 flowers in the seas that surround it, becoming course of a year. It’s the largest of its more water than earth. See that kind ever discovered. strand of cays dangle, like an unfin- This ghost orchid attracts not ished thought, from land’s end. only human visitors, who glimpse it Those 1,350 miles of coastline, from the sanctuary’s boardwalk, but lined with glamorous beaches and also the only insect on Earth that tropical foliage, might feel like can pollinate it: the giant sphinx holiday department store win- GHOST moth. If Cocytius antaeus finds and ORCHID dows full of Florida’s finest wares. dusts the ghost orchid while it’s But the most important gift lies GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE NIGGE/NATIONAL KLAUS OPPOSITE: GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE; PRYOR/NATIONAL MARESA CORKSCREW SWAMP SANCTUARY 50 COASTAL LIVING December 2016 “ Something will have Where gone out of us as a people if the Wild we ever let the remaining Things wilderness be destroyed” RED MANGROVES Are More than one-quarter From Wallace Stegner’s Wilderness Letter, 1960 of Florida’s lands and waters are protected. Find your wilderness at FLORIDA KEYS these (and many more) NATIONAL MARINE precious places BOTTLENOSE SANCTUARY DOLPHIN BLOWING ROCKS PRESERVE A barrier island sanctuary 25 miles GIVE BACK north of West Palm Beach, Blowing Rocks has been protected for its FLORIDA PANTHER natural beauty, limestone formations, Protect critical habitat for this and critical habitat; visit nature.org endangered species through BALD and search “Blowing Rocks Preserve.” The Nature Conservancy’s CYPRESS GIVE BACK Florida panther initiatives: Text CORKSCREW SWAMP SANCTUARY EVERGLADES the word PANTHER to 97779 Thirty miles northeast of Naples, SNAIL KITE to make an instant donation; Corkscrew has boardwalks that bring nature.org/panther. Adopt this endangered species through the Audubon you within 100 feet of its famed Center for Birds of Prey ghost orchid; 239/348-9151 or Adopt-A-Raptor program; corkscrew.audubon.org. Y TOFT/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, MICHAEL DURHAM, MICHAEL DURHAM, GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, Y TOFT/NATIONAL TES LITTLEHALES/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, CARLTON WARD/ WARD/ CARLTON GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, TES LITTLEHALES/NATIONAL UTHERLAND/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE UTHERLAND/NATIONAL fl.audubon.org/chapters- EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK L S , RO , BA centers/adopt-raptor. Home to the Florida panther, West Indian manatee, and 36 more endangered or threatened species, the park’s 1.5 million acres are accessible via Miami, Everglades City, and Homestead; nps.gov/ever. FLORIDA KEYS NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY These 2,900 square nautical miles hold the world’s third-largest barrier reef and more than 6,000 marine species; floridakeys.noaa.gov. GULF ISLANDS NATIONAL SEASHORE White beaches, rich coastal marshes, and protected Gulf waters make this 160-mile span shared by Florida and Mississippi a treasure; nps.gov/guis. GIVE BACK GIVE BACK J.N. DING DARLING NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE FLORIDA SCRUB-JAY WEST INDIAN MANATEE Join Jay Watch, a citizen Join the Save the Manatee On Sanibel Island, this 6,400-acre organization devoted to WHITE IBIS Club, an organization founded refuge provides habitat to more than J. SKERRY/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, DEAN LYTTEFI/GETTY IMAGES DEAN LYTTEFI/GETTY GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, SKERRY/NATIONAL J. protecting Florida’s only PAU GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, LANTING/NATIONAL MINT IMAGES/FRANS ATIVE, by Jimmy Buffett and former PICTURES/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, STEPHEN FRINK/GETTY IMAGES FRINK/GETTY STEPHEN GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE, PICTURES/NATIONAL 245 species of birds; fws.gov/refuge/ endemic bird that teeters on Florida governor Bob Graham; JN_Ding_Darling. the edge of extinction; savethemanatee.org. LAKE WALES RIDGE STATE FOREST fl.audubon.org/get-involved/ TIMUCUAN ROSEATE SPOONBILLS (2), BRIAN jay-watch. APHIC CRE This inland habitat protects the ECOLOGICAL & A/MINDEN HISTORIC PRESERVE Florida scrub-jay and a concentration BROWN PELICAN of rare and endangered plants; freshfromflorida.com. TIMUCUAN ECOLOGICAL & HISTORIC PRESERVE Near Jacksonville, it’s one of the last unspoiled coastal wetlands on the Atlantic Coast; nps.gov/timu. CLOCKWISE: MARK NEWMAN/FLP CLOCKWISE: GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE NATIONAL GEOGR JOEL SARTORE/NATIONAL December 2016 COASTAL LIVING 53 GIVE BACK SEA TURTLE The Sea Turtle Conservancy, based in Florida, supports conservation and education efforts worldwide; conserveturtles.org. “ The Everglades is a test. If we pass it, we may get to keep the planet” Florida activist Joe Podgor southern rim. Rivers were yanked straighter and routed east and west. Humankind attempted to remake what was soggy and insect-infested into land that served. But it became much dryer land. Agriculture made the Everglades thirst, and the past century has been spent arguing over what’s our right and what’s our debt. Sev- enty years ago, 1.5 million acres of the Everglades were preserved in a national park. Since then, additional in the interior. The Seminole Indians named it Big sanctuaries and preserves have helped forestall disaster. Water: Okeechobee. Covering 730 square miles, the But the future of the Everglades, and indeed all of state’s largest lake fills with freshwater flowing south Florida’s rare creatures and their habitats, is held pris- through Florida limestone. And, like hands cupped oner in the battle between man’s quest for order and the heavenward, it catches the rain from thunderheads that instinctual ways of wildness. It can feel, at times, like a pile up and unleash during long wet seasons. losing one for the wild. But nature surprises with her And it overflows. strength. The drive for survival against odds is profound Breaching Okeechobee’s southern shore, there to witness—itself a gift. And on the long beaches of emerges a river as shallow as six inches and as broad as Florida in the summer, it plays out every night. 60 miles. Originally, it crept south unimpeded across Under slow-turning constellations, thousands of almost 11,000 square miles of marsh, sliding over saw- loggerhead, green, and leatherback sea turtles emerge grass and around cypress, pushing through mazes of from the ocean and lumber up damp sands. They are mangroves to flow onto the sea grass flats of Florida Bay. heavy—in bulk, with eggs, and with the threat of extinc- For millennia, that landscape spawned hundreds of tion. In a ritual as inexorable as the tide, mother turtles species that developed fragile relationships among each dig pits for their own bodies, and then deeper holes other and with their environs. The Everglades became beneath. Into those chambers they lay around 100 Ping- a swampy Eden, a natural kingdom beyond the ken of Pong ball–sized eggs, and then labor to cover their cache. poets. Legions of thin-legged wading birds stalked Sapped of energy, they pause, gather strength, and make the flats; brown pelicans skimmed the shore in tight for the sea with what can only be viewed as relief.