University of Miami, School of Communication

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Urban sprawl has growing impact on parks

Efforts underway to clean Grand Canyon air

Parks damaged by Sandy on long road to recovery

Visitors to parks have impact on ecosystems

Eradication of Brazilian pepper tree not simple

Red tide takes toll on Florida’s manatees

Park running events contribute to visitor wellness

Park battles litter problem in trying to protect bay

By GRETCHEN SCHROEDER
School of Communication
University of Miami

Encompassing an area of 95 percent water, Biscayne National Park is the “biggest marine national park in the country,” says park ranger Gary Bremen.

The National Park Service defines it as a park that  “protects a rare combination of aquamarine waters, emerald islands, and fish-bejeweled coral reefs.”

Established in 1980, the park's priimary role is to protect precious marine life. The 42 staff members who help run and protect Biscayne National Park are the main offense for park protection and there is one clear opponent the park faces daily… litter.

A large dumpster provided for use by visitors near the Fascell Visitor Center at Biscayne National Park (Photos by Gretchen Schroeder).

It is clear in areas of the park that visitors are prone to hastily dispose of trash in open areas. Gum wrappers and cigarette butts line the bridge that takes visitors to popular fishing locations. At these fishing locations, unused gear and plastic bags are left on the land and not discarded.

“A majority of the litter problem in Biscayne comes from individuals not doing their part,” said Grace Crispell, a weekend park volunteer.  “Sometimes people don’t seem to care. A lot of the litter comes from the parking lot next to the visitor’s center.”

Visitors getting ready to go into the park leave their trash by their cars, not thinking much of it.  But this trash gets blown into the park and scattered over the land. 

However, it’s not just trash on land that affects the park. As Biscayne is mostly water, trash thrown overboard by fisherman not only disturbs the water, but washes up on land. 

“I wish fisherman would take better care of the park.  So much stuff gets thrown overboard, and we have no control over it,” Crispell said.

Trash discarded by fisherman often comes ashore with the tides and winds, tangling in mangroves or pushing onto shore.

Though litter is a challenge, there are many major efforts to prevent it. One of the most popular initiatives by residents near the park is a countywide clean up day known as “Baynanza”, sponsored by Miami-Dade County.

This year, the highlight of Baynanza will be the Biscayne Bay Cleanup Day, on Saturday, April 20.  Volunteers can sign up to specifically clean up Biscayne Bay and its surroundings, eliminating trash in the national park. Baynanza is also open to boaters who can travel further distances to find disbris.

Executive Director of the South Florida National Parks Trust, Don Finefrock, says his organization helps sponsor other programs for Biscayne, such as an Alternative Spring Break program for students looking to help volunteer for a good cause.

“We send the kids out to the turtle beaches right before nesting season to clean the shore,” said Finefrock. “That way, the turtles can avoid trash and debris and successfully nest.” 

At right, trash cans and recycle bins are located by popular fishing areas, available for personal trash disposal. Below, a cigarette butt is jammed into a space on a boardwalk bridge.

This Alternative Spring Break initiative has been in place for more than five years and Finefrock says, “it’s just enough to protect the turtles.”

The South Florida National Parks Trust also helps sponsor smaller efforts by hiring volunteer program coordinators.

“We hire people to help coordinate groups like Girl Scouts and churches to come to the park for clean up,” Finefrock said. “Trash always comes back, but the smaller initiatives do help. Connection with the community creates impact.”

Research done by Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB) shows that nearly 85 percent of all littering in America is a result of personal attitudes. 

Thus, by changing individual attitudes and behavior in the park, Biscayne has been able to cut down on the amount of waste in Biscayne.

University of Miami student Gabriela Varley, a park visitor, talked about her personal experience at Biscayne. 

“I went kayaking, had lunch on the water, drank a Gatorade, and had some fruit. I wrapped all of my trash in a bag and made sure when I got back I threw it away. I wasn’t going to just leave trash in the kayak or the water.”

Varley also discussed how impressed she was with Biscayne National Park and Biscayne Bay.

“There was hardly any litter. I didn’t notice anything,” said Varley.

However, Varley said she noticed a few things on Biscayne’s cleaning efforts.

“There were huge, metallic, sturdy recycling and trash bins. I feel like that would help people be more inclined to recycle or at least clean up after themselves.”

Though litter is a daily struggle, Biscayne is tackling it with confidence. 

Pink silly string left on a tree in the walkway of a picnic area following a party at the Fascell Visitor Center.

“The maintenance workers here do a really great job,” said Crispell. “They get out there any make sure the park gets clean.”

Despite the litter problem that plagues all national parks, Biscayne is doing their part to make an impact on visitors. 

“This was my first time at Biscayne, at it was really nice,” said Varley. “I don’t think I’ve been to a public place that’s been so clean before.  I really enjoyed myself.”

Remoteness creates opportunity for smuggling

Safety at Columbus Day Regatta improving

By TREVOR MAXIM
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- In 1954, a group of sailors began a friendly race in Biscayne National Park to mark Columbus Day weekend, making their way down Biscayne Bay and then camping out for the night. It was an event free of spectators, free of outside attention, comprised mainly of locals who frequented the bay.

But before long recreational boaters caught wind of the race and began to gather at the finish line, turning it into a social affair. By 1984 the race grew to 761 registered sailors and even more outsiders who were there for the party more than the sporting. Since then, the Columbus Day Regatta has earned the nickname “Mardi Gras of Miami” and has become a high priority for local police, park rangers, and the Coast Guard.

Boaters at the Columbus Day Regatta (Photo courtesy of Biscayne National Park).

According to the National Park Service, the 2012 regatta saw more than 200 law enforcement cases, including boating under the influence arrests, drug seizures, and a helicopter evacuation. The NPS was thankful, claiming to have gotten away “relatively unscathed” from the weekend.

Gary Bremen, a park ranger at Biscayne National Park for the past 18 years, said that while the event is still dangerous, there has been much improvement from the peak of illegal activity in the 1980s. While boaters still gather inside the park, the actual race no longer takes place within its borders.

“This past year was much more controlled,” Bremen said. “We were out there Friday afternoon telling people the rules and we had a media conference with folks that had experienced deaths of family members at previous Columbus Day Regattas.”

One of the families was that of Juan Carlos Morales, who died after falling off the back of a 65-foot boat and landing on the propellers at the 2011 regatta. In response to this and other tragedies, Bremen said the park service has taken further steps in the past two years such as regulating noise levels during the weekend and limiting the number of boats that may be rafted together to five.

According to John Adornato, the Southeast regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, there is still more that can be done to protect Biscayne National Park from some of the harmful impacts of the regatta.

“National parks are special and unique,” Adornato said. “You have a different set of rules and regulations than you do in a normal place.”

For Adornato, whose job is to advocate for the preservation of the national parks, a major problem he cites is that most people aren’t aware they’re entering a national park when they come to the event, seeing it simply as a party location.

With 95 percent of Biscayne National Park’s surface submerged in the ocean, one consistent criticism has been that it is difficult to access for people without a boat.

Terri Cantu is the owner of Yacht Charters in Miami, a boat charter company that has been affected by the elevated security of the recent regattas. According to Cantu, her company is no longer able to offer customers trips to the Columbus Day Regatta, something she sees as part of a disheartening trend for the park.

“Anyone visiting Miami deserves to have the same availability as someone with a boat,” Cantu said. “The event is fun and should be an open opportunity.”

Cantu points to other public gatherings such as NASCAR races that have faced their own accidents and controversies in recent years, suggesting that recoil against boaters has placed the blame unfairly.

“I think their goal is to diminish all activity at the sandbar for safety reasons, but anytime you have a big group of people together you’ll have safety issues,” said Cantu.

Another charter specialist, Carolina Rojas of Golden Yacht Charters, said she agrees the authorities have limited her ability to take people to the event. She said her company has even faced legal pressure to stop advertising their services online using the phrase “Columbus Day Regatta.”

“Because of the accidents and regulations and park rangers, the Columbus Day Regatta is not what it used to be,” Rojas said. “The city just doesn’t want it and the park doesn’t want people there.”

Boaters gathered at the 2012 Columbus Day Regatta in Biscayne Bay (Photo courtesy of Biscayne National Park).

Caki Padron, a 22-year-old student at the University of Miami and Miami native, has been attending the Columbus Day Regatta for six years. As a boat owner, he said he has always been aware of the national park’s location but doesn’t believe that should limit his ability to take part in the social aspect of the weekend.

“I have other friends with boats and we all like to tie up together and just hang out for the day,” Padron says. “The people who go to the park know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Maritime law enforcement specialist Charles Kinnear has been working at the regatta since 2009 on behalf of the United States Coast Guard. Their patrol schedule is elevated over the weekend to include 24-hour coverage of the bay. He said he expects the trend of decreased illicit activity during Columbus Day Weekend to continue for the foreseeable future, as the Coast Guard takes steps such as printing out brochures two months in advance of the regatta to educate the public.

“If something happens and I know about it, I’m going to do something,” Kinnear said. “Just because it’s a park doesn’t mean we’re going to be less aware of the situation. Safety is our number one concern.”

The National Park Service got creative last year on its Biscayne National Park Facebook page, sharing with its more than 2,000 fans an image of rowdy boaters at a previous regatta cut and pasted into a background of pine trees and mountains with caption “Would this happen at Yosemite National Park?” While some users who called out the obvious use of Photoshop missed the sarcastic nature of the post, it managed to draw more shares than the vast majority of the page’s content, proving that the park service was at least able to start a conversation.

Bremen said he has similar visions about the future of the Columbus Day Regatta, calling the 2012 weekend a step in the right direction. With a key addition to the Biscayne National Park staff, Bremen believes things might stay this way. Incoming superintendent Brian Carlstrom comes from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Maryland and brings with him more than 20 years of experience with the National Park Service.

“Our new superintendent comes in next week with a background in resource management,” Bremen said. “We have high hopes for him to continue the trend of pulling the reigns in.”

In an event mired by six deaths in the past 10 years, for Bremen the mere fact that everyone survived the most recent one is cause for celebration.

NPS moves toward sustainable healthy food

Rising sea levels pose threat to Everglades

By STEPHEN KLEIN
School of Communication
University of Miami

When people think of the Everglades, they often picture vast wetlands, nesting birds and alligators lurking in the sawgrass.

But, rising sea levels are starting to change how that picture looks.

For the Everglades, being at risk from encroaching factors is not a new experience. From early development of Florida, to diversion of water sources, the Everglades have been encroached on by people’s desire for more useable space. Now, with the growing concern over climate change, the threat to the Everglades takes the form of salt water encroachment.

As saltwater levels increase, animals like the alligator are migrating to remaining freshwater sources (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

“You have to be careful about what we call climate change damage. We know that sea levels are rising, and we can certainly see effects from that, but we also know that we have a lot of storm surges down here and we have a very variable climate,” said Everglades National Park ecologist and climate change expert Leonard Pearlstine. “As the sea comes up the storm surges are able to get deeper into the interior”.

The effects of sea level rise on the Everglades are not something that affects only environmentalists. Additional sea level rise and with it increased saltwater encroachment, affects the fresh water supply for all of South Florida.

According to Dr. Harold Wanless, a geologist for the University of Miami, a minor increase in sea level rises in the next few years will force water managers to make tough decisions regarding how they will combat saltwater intrusion.

“They say that with a 20 centimeter farther rise in sea level (about eight inches), that 65 percent of these water control structures between here and Palm Beach County won’t work anymore. Meaning to keep the saltwater out we’re either going to have to raise the water levels landward to the point that we start flooding out communities and roads. Or we can keep the water levels down but saltwater intrusion will happen,” Wanless said.

In recent years the Everglades have started to experience a shift in the eco-system of coastal areas from habitats that are supportive of freshwater communities, to a growth in plants that thrive in saltwater. It can be seen in local wildlife with saltwater-tolerant crocodiles moving into waters formally inhabited by alligators.

“We have a fair number of rare species that are dependent upon the hammocks along the coast and as they become more saline those species become more threatened,” cautioned Pearlstine.

One under-noticed aspect of saltwater intrusion is that the peat soil levels have been reduced, bringing the Everglades closer to sea-level. This makes it easier for saltwater to come up and affect the water tables. The local mangroves are particularly important to the local ecosystem because they help to build elevation to counteract sea level rise.

“The important thing about mangroves is… the habitat that they provide for a myriad of estuarine creatures,” said Dawn Shirreffs, Everglades Restoration Program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s maintaining the balance of freshwater and saltwater in our estuaries, because the minute they become hyper-saline it degrades all of the environment.”

Dead cypress and encroaching mangrove along the eastern side of coastal Everglades National Park (Photo courtesy of Jimi Sadle, Everglades National Park).

“Saltwater predominated habitats tend to be mangroves and saltwater marshes. The problem that people have begun to see is that saltwater is intruding into the marshes faster than the mangroves can keep up,” said Rachael Johnson, who is studying geology and ecosystem policy at the University of Miami. “Usually, if you had a slow sea level rise, saltwater would intrude slowly and the mangroves would have time to migrate backwards.”

Wanless points to nearby Cape Sable as an example of how quickly saltwater can overtake fresh and shift the nature of a location.

“The interior was a freshwater marsh just like the Everglades… but we did a study on Cape Sable from around 2000 to 2005 and it has basically lost all of its freshwater marsh because of rising sea levels. It’s one of the first places where we’re seeing major coastal change and major change in the wetlands. When the freshwater marsh dies because of saltwater encroachment it immediately collapses and dies,” Wanless noted.

 One concern that faces those tasked with preserving the Everglades is that the saltwater is advancing faster than mangrove groves can retreat with it and keep it at bay. This is especially concerning on a more global scale because of the effectiveness of mangroves as sinks for carbon-dioxide.

“Mangroves are very interesting trees,” observed Wanless. “The red mangrove, half the biomass is in the root system. They are probably the best sequester of carbon that we have. If you plant mangroves they create a lot of organic matter in the soil living in dead roots.”

Part of the issue is that the porous limestone base rock allows saltwater to permeate and flow under any attempts that could be made to block encroachment from above, and prevents attempts to pump out saltwater by limiting ability to control where the saltwater flows.

With the issue established, how can the Everglades be preserved from future damage and even reverse the effects of encroaching saltwater? Experts like Wanless and Pearlstine work on this issue with limited success, and often differ on what the best strategy for recovery is.

“The most important things we can do for both the plants and animals of the Everglades and the ecosystem is to get fresh water down here,” Pearlstine said. “With these extreme events we are subjecting our eco-system to pretty rapid and harsh changes. By bringing fresh water down into the Everglades National Park and down to Florida Bay, it’s mitigating a lot of that. It’s helping to hold saltwater intrusion back, creating buffers and more stable eco-systems for our plant communities.”

When the Everglades have enough fresh water in them they act as a buffer to saltwater intrusion. However, water levels are often compromised by the need to protect inhabited areas.

“The Biscayne Aquifer is our drinking water supply and the way that our limestone aquifer has developed it is easily contaminated by saltwater if there is sea-level rise,” said Shirreffs. “We know that the only thing that can keep the Biscayne Aquifer free from that is maintaining enough force in the freshwater flow to keep the saltwater out. Once you get saltwater into an area of the aquifer, it cannot be functional for providing freshwater for Florida’s families for an estimated 100 years.”

But the issue of where the water should come from remains an issue. After failed attempts to store excess water in the ground near Lake Okeechobee, the newest question is if water from sugar agriculture should be used. However, this source creates nutrient rich water which is not good for the native sawgrass, and instead encourages the growth of invasive cattails.

Damage from saltwater intrusion is hurting freshwater prairies in the Everglades (Photo courtesy of Everglades National Park).

“The question was ‘well, how fast can sawgrass build peat’? And the answer according to the biologist at the Everglades is about a foot per century. Well that’s not fast enough so you’re going to get screwed; it’s not going to work” said Wanless. “So my response was let the nutrients come down, let the cattails go wild, build up your water levels, build up your soil levels and then convert it back to the community that you want”.

However, legal roadblocks stand in the way of using nutrient rich water to increase freshwater flow in the Everglades.

“The law does not allow us to put water that has been compromised into Everglades National Park because it would destroy the ecosystem. It’s a nutrient sensitive ecosystem,” said Shirreffs. “That is one of the major constraints holding us back from putting freshwater flows into the Everglades today. If we cannot resolve the water quality issues that we have due to agricultural production in the Everglades area, then we are not going to be able to restore freshwater flows.”

But with current government projections showing sea level rises of 4.4 to 6 feet by the end of the century, Wanless sometimes wonders if it is even worth continuing to try and preserve something that probably will not be there in 50 to 100 years.

“One could wonder if we’re going to flood out sometime this century if we should even be bothering with the Everglades restoration. And I think from a human, selfish point of view the answer is yes. Because if we can raise the water level in the Everglades a little bit, we can maintain the freshwater head difference a bit and keep the saltwater at bay and keep our source of fresh drinking water longer.”

Even if conservation efforts have success, the future of the Everglades and Florida as a whole is tied to climate change.

As Wanless put it “When you start to look at the future of Florida you can’t look at Florida, you have to look at Greenland and Antarctica.”

But for right now, the Everglades are still an important contributor to the fight against climate change, and will be until the oceans overtake it, or it helps to win the fight.

White nose syndrome threatens cave ecosystems

Park service works to improve visitor diversity

Nightskies are at their best in national parks

Geocaching gains in popularity in Everglades

By DARCI MILLER
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – It’s the dream of countless children to stumble across a cryptic map and embark on a treasure hunt.

Digging through the underbrush in an attempt to find that elusive X marks the spot, heart pounding in anticipation as the mysterious chest is unearthed – what could be more exciting?

Though traditionally these fantasies involve a battered piece of parchment and maybe a pirate ship, modern-day treasure hunters can arm themselves with a GPS device and set off in pursuit of bounties of their own.

Usually Tupperware rather than ancient wood and more than likely not full of gold and jewels, the treasure hunt takes a 21^st-century upgrade in the form of geocaching.

“Geocaching is basically a really fun, real world hunting kind of adventure,” said Jenn Seva, a Business Development Program Manager at Geocaching.com. “And my guess is that no matter where in the world you are, there’s a geocache not too far away.”

In geocaching, participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and attempt to find the geocache (usually a container) at that location.

“It’s been gaining wildly in popularity for a long time, ever since the demilitarization of the global positioning system,” said Larry Perez, a science communications worker for all of South Florida’s national parks. “For the most part – not always, but for the most part – geocaching tends toward natural areas.”

It’s this aspect of geocaching that caught Perez’s eye when Everglades National Park was undergoing several major restoration projects.

“A few of us at the park down here in South Florida had talked about instituting geocaching as an interpretive tool in the parks for a long, long time but just hadn’t had a real good way of doing it,” he said. “Starting in 2009 we had the groundbreaking of one of several very high profile Everglades restoration projects going on here in South Florida. And a number of those project sites weren’t necessarily in the national parks but they were adjacent to them, just outside these national park areas. And these projects were very important to the longevity of the parks they intended to benefit. So we said, ‘well, what a great idea! Let’s use geocaching in lands that aren’t in the national park but are close by, and do it for a year and see what the response is.’”

So Perez reached out to Geocaching.com, which had been working with the National Park Service for a number of years. He was able to utilize some of the website’s images and other creative assets, and used the online form to set up the Everglades’ caches.

The first cache was placed in August of 2010 in the Deering Estate at Cutler, a Miami-Dade County park, and highlights the Biscayne Bay coastal wetlands project. This project involves a station designed to redirect water flow out into the Deering Estate and eventually into northern Biscayne Bay, restoring a historic hydrologic flow that was there and moving more quantities of fresh water into Biscayne Bay itself.

The second cache is at the Tamiami Trail Bridge, a one-mile bridge that’s going to bring waters from the north and flow them into Everglades National Park.

The third and final cache is immediately outside the entrance to the park at a project called the C-111 Spreader Canal, which is a ridge on the edge of the park to prevent water from leaving.

These caches have been in place for a year, and each one has received 150 unique visitors.

It was because of this success that Perez decided to expand the project in an unprecedented way. This past January, Everglades National Park unveiled five new physical caches within the park itself.

“That’s what sets Larry’s geocaches apart. They’re actual containers that people can find,” said Seva.

There are two main types of geocaches. The first, main kind of cache is a physical container that participants need to find. The other, Perez says, is called a “virtual cache,” where there’s no physical object to be found. While other national parks do have geocaching trails, the vast majority have only “earth caches.”

“Earth caches are a type of virtual geocache that, rather than have individuals find an object, require that individuals learn a lesson of some sort, usually with regards to ecology or geology,” Perez explains.

Though a fairly new concept in terms of exploring a national park, the Everglades’ five caches had accumulated more than 225 visitors before a full month had elapsed.

“Very early on as far as geocaching as an activity goes, there was a lot of hesitation about national park service areas in regards to allowing people to come in and place objects in the woods and encouraging people to go out and find them en masse,” said Perez. “And you can probably understand why; they’re protected areas with certain resources that are considered sensitive.”

So the Everglades is taking one pilot year to test the program. A team looked for strategic, appropriate areas in which to place the caches and took baseline information there. In a year’s time, the terrain will be analyzed along with information collected from the caches to determine whether the costs are worth the benefits.

Each cache contains a log inside of it, so when participants find it there’s the opportunity to record messages. Perez says that the data found here, rather than simply the visitation numbers, is what’s most valuable. Not only can geocachers record stories of their hunt for the cache, but it gives the park a unique opportunity to facilitate dialogue.

“We sort of realized that people want to talk about things, and we don’t really give them the opportunity. If you go to a national park, if you go to Yellowstone, if you go to the Grand Canyon or even here at the Everglades and you go on a ranger program, here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll be in a group of people, the ranger’s going to do a brain-dump on you, he’s going to say everything that he knows about the place in the course of 45 minutes, and at the end you’ll have five minutes to ask questions, and then you’re done,” Perez said.

“But what we’re finding is people not only want to share their experiences and their knowledge, but they can also learn a lot from one another. And so instead of this old paradigm of just standing before a group of people and talking to them, we want to facilitate dialogue and talk with them, especially on topics that are perhaps controversial or difficult to talk about.”

Each cache in the Everglades encourages visitors to become a park employee for the day, stepping into various roles to contemplate real management issues the park is facing. One cache turns you into a park botanist and asks you to figure out how to deal with invasive species. Another asks you to step into the shoes of a fire management officer and decide if saving an endangered bird is worth risking the lives of firefighters. Another allows you to become a park planning officer and contemplate rebuilding visitor facilities in a hurricane-prone area.

So far, it’s working like a charm. Feedback on the trail has been overwhelmingly positive, attracting visitors from such far-flung places as The Netherlands, Germany and France. Perez says that a future expansion could be in the cards if the project proves to be safe for the environment.

“I think he’s just getting started!” said Seva. “The ones that are published right now are the beginning of what we hope is a larger thing. I look forward to seeing it flourish.”

So grab your treasure map – uh, GPS coordinates. The treasure hunt awaits!

Eco-Tent debuts at Everglades’ campground

By MATTAN COMAY
School of Communication
University of Miami

The Everglades National Park has come together with other South Florida institutions to open a new overnight lodging option, the Flamingo Eco-Tent, in the park.

The Flamingo Lodge, located in the Everglades since 1959, closed after two major hurricanes, Katrina and Wilma, swept through the southeastern United States in 2005. The storm surges pushed waters onto the shores of Flamingo, the southernmost part of the park, and destroyed the lodge and other cabins.

A computer rendering of the interior of the Eco-Tent displaying the bed and table (Picture courtesy of Carlo J. Guzman De Jesus).

Since the 2005 hurricane season, the desire for overnight lodging options has grown tremendously, especially from fishermen, anglers and fishing guides who depended on the lodge when not at sea.

But things are looking up for lodging in Flamingo. During the past decade, efforts have been made to increase camping opportunities in the area, most notably the Flamingo Eco-Tent.

The 14-foot by 14-foot prototype comfortably accommodates four adults and provides bed frames, a table and chairs. Up to eight people are allowed on the campsite, and it is available to rent from Dec. 14 through April 14 for up to three nights at a time to ensure a large sample of campers can experience the Eco-Tent and provide Flamingo with feedback.

“We hope this becomes one of several alternative lodging options and helps to kick-start rebuilding in Flamingo,” Don Finefrock, executive director of the South Florida National Parks Trust.

The Eco-Tent is a collaboration between the Everglades, the South Florida National Parks Trust, and the University of Miami School of Architecture. All three parties have worked on this project with hopes to jumpstart rebuilding overnight accommodations in the park.

The South Florida National Parks Trust is a non-for-profit organization founded in 2002 that strives to fundraise and support the four national parks in South Florida: the Everglades, Biscayne and Dry Tortugas National Parks, and Big Cypress National Preserve.

In January 2006, the South Florida National Parks Trust board met with the Dan Kimball, the superintendent of the Everglades National Park, and made a commitment to help recovery in the Flamingo area, according to Finefrock.

However, besides a down payment of $26,000, no additional planning had been solidified for the area.

At right, the final product sits next to the University of Miami School of Architecture before being dismantled and transported to Flamingo (Photo courtesy of Carlo J. Guzman De Jesus). Below, student Violet Battat and an Everglades employee discuss the Eco-Tent with a journalist in Flamingo (Photo courtesy of Rocco Ceo).

In 2011 Mike Jester, the Everglades maintenance chief, contacted the School of Architecture at the University of Miami looking for an intern architect to work in the park. Rocco Ceo, an architecture professor at the school, suggested having the two institutions working together to create a new lodging option, the Flamingo Eco-Tent, through a course in which students design and build the final product.

Led by professors Ceo and Jim Adamson, 11 fifth-year and graduate students met three times a week for 14 weeks to work on the pilot project.

Sam Vana, a recent graduate of the UM School of Architecture, is one of the students who took the design-build studio course.

“We spent the first couple of weeks in the studio designing and coming up with ideas to make the best product we could put out. Then there were a few weeks of creating documents and fixing details on paper. The last portion of the class was us outside and building each class,” Vana said.

Vana enrolled in the class because “everyone wants to have their designs built.”

Other students shared similar motivations. Ceo recalled, “An architecture student who draws and designs and never builds anything throughout their education can’t help to feel incomplete.”

At the end of the spring 2012 semester, many of the students graduated from the program and therefore could not see the Eco-Tent reassembled in the Everglades due to pursuing new jobs and opportunities.

Kimball and Everglades staff approached the South Florida National Parks Trust for assistance in funding the construction of the Eco-Tent. The final cost for the prototype came to $17,000, an unexpected cost but one for which the trust was happy to help pay.

The Everglades’ next task was to advertise the Eco-Tent to the public. Through news releases to the media and promotion of the tent on the Everglades National Park homepage, the park had enough publicity to book the tent solidly for the entire four-month period. At of the beginning of March, the park only took reservations when there was a cancellation.

All of the hard work from the three parties involved paid off on Dec. 14, the day the Eco-Tent opened for rent.

All three partnering organizations find the experience to be mutually advantageous. But they’re not the only ones who gain from the Eco-Tent effort.

“The partnership with the University of Miami and South Florida National Parks Trust has been outstanding,” said Mary Plumb, acting public affairs offcer for the Everglades National Park. “Every visitor is benefitting from this.”

The Eco-Tent has received a lot of praise, notably for its “great vantage point of the Florida Bay unsurpassed in beauty and serenity,” Plumb remarked.

But some constructive criticism is still present.

“The experience is weather-dependent,” Finefrock said. “When it was warm with no breeze, the park discovered the Eco-Tent is not bug tight. But later in the winter season, it’s cooler and bugs are not a problem.”

Finefrock also said there is a lack of privacy because of mass interest from other campers in Flamingo. However, he said this will disappear with eventual greater exposure to and prevalence of the Eco-Tent.

The Everglades is looking to expand this lodging option in the Flamingo Campground. Prospective companies visited the Eco-Tent in February, after the Everglades released a prospectus for a concessions contract.

The Flamingo Eco-Tent assembled on the Flamingo campgrounds and ready for its four-month debut, now with working walls (Photo courtesy of Rocco Ceo).

Companies that show interest in producing more Eco-Tents and helping further develop Flamingo will bid for the contract, lasting 10 years.

“It’s a very legal process,” Plumb said. “The bid is open to anyone who wants it, and whoever provides a bid will go to a review panel later this year.”


If You Go

The Flamingo Visitor Center is approximately 38 miles from the Everglades’ main entrance near Florida City. Open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Hours are subject to change.

For phone reservations, call 239-695-0124 between 6am and 6pm. At this time reservations are only taken if cancellations occur.

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Living, working in Dry Tortugas can be challenging

By EMMA REYES
School of Communication
University of Miami

DRY TORTUGAS, Fla. – It’s 7 a.m. at Fort Jefferson and Lead Conservator Ron Harvey is starting his day along with three of his team members to work on the treatment of the cannons that have been at the fort for more than 100 years.

Fort Jefferson is located in the Dry Tortugas National Park, which is 70 miles west of Key West. It was built to protect one of the most strategic deep-water anchorages in North America.

The Officers Quarters' ruins at Fort Jefferson (Photo courtesy by National Park Service).

The U.S. maintained an important “advance post” for ships traversing the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida. The port was accessible to ships to resupply, refit or seek refuge from storms.

Within the fort is the Enola crew. These are 15 masons who work and live in the residential and service areas. The crew works for two to three straight weeks and then takes a break for a week.

Harvey and his team have been working at Fort Jefferson since 2005 and they work for about two months out of the year between February-March and October-November.

Life in the fort is tense with 11 to 12 hour days of work depending on the work the cannon needs, but Harvey explained that when the workday is over the fun starts.

The entrance to Fort Jefferson from the loading dock (Photo by Emma Reyes).

“The great thing about working at the fort is coming back to the Crew's Quarters, changing into bathing suits and going for a swim, both to cool down and to decompress from the day.”

Harvey also described some of the special activities that he and his fellow living mates do in the fort.  

“Often the completion of the day is watching the sunset, go back and make a good dinner, review the day and plan the next day of work. Sometimes we take a moat walk with the sky filled with stars, planets, the Milky Way, and at times a full moon. You never know what you will see in the moat and it is always amazing.”

Living in the Dry Tortugas National Park takes a lot of planning and shopping ahead of time. Harvey explained that when working at Fort Jefferson the project has to be planned in advanced and the materials or equipment needed are scheduled for delivery in a park service boat, the Fort Jefferson, which is anchored in Key West.

At left, the Gulf of Mexico and the Yankee Freedom ferry from the entrance of Fort Jefferson (Photo by Emma Reyes). Below, a View of the open area inside Fort Jefferson (Photo by Emma Reyes).

“Materials are shipped to the boat, the boat crew receive the materials and load them, transport them and deliver them to the fort ahead of our arrival,” said Harvey.

When Harvey and his team arrive in Key West, they have shopping lists with local available supplies, small items as hardware, hand tools or small things we need as they see fit for the project.

The team must provide its own food for the stay in the fort since there are no shopping facilities in the park. The crew shops for non-perishables and meat that is frozen in Key West. At the end of the shopping day, the team gets the perishables, fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy products that will carry them for the three weeks stay on the island.

In the morning of the departure, all of the materials get packed in banana boxes and taken to the Yankee Freedom to be transported to the Dry Tortugas.

Because the National Park Service boat, the Fort Jefferson, schedules trips that are twice a month, Harvey and his team make their way to the island on the Yankee Freedom. The ferry makes trips to the park on a daily schedule.

When the group arrives at the fort, it unloads the supplies and gear unto a battery operated cart that is then taken to the “Crew’s Quarters” where Harvey and his team make their home for their three weeks work project at the Fort.

Harvey said that he is honored to be working on a project with such history and is grateful for the work the National Park Service has put into saving the fort and its cannon.

“We are so pleased and fortunate to be able to undertake the conservation of the cannon at Fort Jefferson. We are fortunate to be working for one of the very best curators in the park system, Nancy Russell. She has been wonderful to work with and has made this project possible, addressing funding, historical overview and been the balancing element in out approach to the conservation of the important cultural heritage elements at the fort.”

 

If You Go

• The Dry Tortugas National Park is located 70 miles west of Key West and access is only by private boats, charter boats or seaplane. There is public transportation available, which is called the Yankee Freedom II.
• Yankee Freedom II departs from Key West and the voyage takes about two hours and 10 minutes to get to the park. The ferry offers continental breakfast with fresh fruit, freshly baked bagels, hot and cold cereal, boiled eggs, cheese, yogurt, juice and coffee. The ferry also offers complimentary lunch buffet, which includes fresh deli meats, cheeses peanut butter and jelly for the kids, a variety types of salads, fresh fruit, chips, cookies and soft drinks. The fee for entrance to the park is $5, but it is included in the ferry fee. For more information on rates and travel information visit, http://www.yankeefreedom.com.
• When in the park, explore the historic Fort Jefferson, snorkel the marine resources, bird watching or just sitting and enjoying ocean views. The Yankee Freedom II provides guided tours that are about 40 minutes in duration starting at 11 a.m.
• Experience camping and for a detailed information guide visit, http://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/camping.htm.

Journey to Tortugas includes stop for key lime pie

Gulf near Tortugas park holds many wreck stories

By LAURIE CHARLES
School of Communication
University of Miami

DRY TORTUGAS, Fla. — If the waters of the Gulf of Mexico that surround the Dry Tortugas National Park could speak, they would tell stories of victory, conspiracy, and tragedy.

The series of seven islands located about 70 miles west of Key West are known as the holding place of Fort Jefferson.

Built in the 1800s, the fort was constructed to control the trade route from the Mississippi River into the Atlantic and was temporarily used as a Union prison during the Civil War.

At left, an anchor salvaged from one of the more than 200 shipwrecks of the Dry Tortugas (Photos by Laurie Charles). Next, this boat was found on the shores of Garden Key and is now in display in Fort Jefferson

Yet due to the function and location of the fort, the Dry Tortugas were once notorious for shipwrecks.

“There are over 200 shipwrecks around the island,” said Kelly Clark, exhibit specialist for the Dry Tortugas National Park.

“Channels of deep water and coral were extremely difficult for ships of the day to navigate. They had to be familiar with the route otherwise there was a real risk of being shipwrecked. That’s why shipwrecks were very common here.”

In spite of the danger imposed by the deep coral, strong currents, and shallow waters of the Dry Tortugas, it was a major shipping route during the 1800s.

“It was a really important seaport highway,” said Melissa Memory, chief of Cultural Resources for the Everglades and Dry Tortugas national parks. “The current would bring them [the ships] past the Tortugas in the Florida Straits to the East Coast.”

Most of the ships that navigated through the waters of the Dry Tortugas during the early 19^th century were merchants carrying cargo for trade between the Spanish, Northeastern Atlantic, Western Caribbean, and Gulf Coast ports.

During the time of the construction of Fort Jefferson, many of the ships coming to and from the Dry Tortugas carried building materials and equipment.

One of the most popular and explored shipwrecks of the region was the Windjammer Wreck.

Located about a mile southwest of Loggerhead Key, the Avanti, originally named the Killean, was a three-masted Norwegian vessel built in 1875.

“That particular ship is the very height of the sailing technology and was the last generation of ships powered by sail before ships powered by steam started to take over,” said Dave Conlin, chief of Submerged Cultural Resources, the unit that manages the shipwrecks within the National Park Service.

Prior to its wreck in 1907, the Avanti, later named the Windjammer because of its association with the class of sailing vessels known as windjammers, had a long and successful career.

Built in 1875, the Avanti had gone through three different owners before its last voyage through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Throughout its sailing career, the ship served as a cargo vessel that was used for international trade. During its final years, the Avanti was used as a tramp carrier.

In its final journey through the Dry Tortugas, the Avanti was carrying lumber and was most likely making its way to Uruguay from Pensacola.

The lighthouses of Fort Jefferson were built to help mariners navigate through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Loggerhead Lighthouse was built on the most dangerous key of the Dry Tortugas. It was intended to be taller and have a stronger light than the others.

“It’s not clear what happened to it, but it looks like it was thrown into a reef by storm and was wrecked in the reef,” said Conlin.

Bird Key wreck, also known as the Brick Wreck, is another commonly explored shipwreck of the Dry Tortugas.

However, Conlin said that it was a pretty small wreck in comparison to the Windjammer.

“It was a steam powered wreck and looks like it was a very small tug boat that was used to help move sailing ships around the Dry Tortugas,” said Conlin.

Although the cause of the Bird Key wreck is unknown, it was discovered that the boat was carrying bricks at the time it was wrecked.

The Windjammer and the Bird Key wreck are the most talked about underwater sites of the Dry Tortugas mainly because they are the wrecks with the most documentation.

“We want to interpret sites that have physical integrity that look like shipwrecks and are recognizable,” said Memory.

Although there are close to 240 casualties in the area, many of the ships were destroyed by wreckers — the pirates of the Dry Tortugas.

“They didn’t want the other ships to know there was danger there because they wanted other ships to get wrecked so that they could take the cargo,” said Memory. “So they would burn the ships after they took the goods. What is left is metal which gets incrusted with coral and becomes habitat.”

To help alleviate the number of shipwrecks in the region, the U.S. government implemented the construction of lighthouses.

The first lighthouse was the Garden Key lighthouse. However, it was built too short, dim, and far away from the other reefs; another lighthouse was ordered to be built in Garden Key on one of the bastions of the fort.

Shipwrecks, however, were still very common and increased even after both lighthouses were constructed. The U.S. government then ordered another lighthouse to be built.

It was called the Loggerhead Lighthouse. Located on the most dangerous key, Loggerhead Lighthouse was a taller and brighter lighthouse than the other two located on Garden Key.

The lighthouse was maintained lit through World War II until 1982 when the U.S. Coast Guard left the island.

Although the lighthouses helped alleviate the number of shipwrecks, travelers visit the Dry Tortugas to explore the vessels that have now become a part of the Dry Tortugas National Park.

“There are lots of shipwrecks in the Dry Tortugas. While they are an incredible and wonderful thing to see in the Dry Tortugas, there’s also lots of wonders out there that are worth seeing as well,” Conlin said.

Snorkeling and scuba diving allow travelers to explore the wonder of the shipwrecks as well as the marine life that has become a part of those shipwrecks.

Michigan resident Diane Wheelock went snorkeling and explored the waters of the Dry Tortugas through a set of goggles.

“The colors of the water,” is what Wheelock said fascinated her the most.

The shipwrecks, however, are what made the trip to the Dry Tortugas worthwhile for Gean Parzek, a New York resident who was visiting the park with his wife.

“We’re right in the heart of it,” said Parzek.

 

 

If You Go

Dry Tortugas National Park

305-242-1100

http://nps.gov/drto

Entrance fee: $5 (included with ticket price for visitors on Yankee Freedom ferry).

Although Fort Jefferson, located on Garden Key, is the most popular attraction of the Dry Tortugas, there are other small islands to explore as well.

Hours of Operation

Garden Key is open year-round, 24 hours a day; Fort Jefferson is open from sunrise to sunset.

Loggerhead Key is open year-round from sunrise to sunset, but all of the island’s facilities including Loggerhead Lighthouse are closed to the public.

Bush Key is open Oct. 15 – Jan. 15 from sunrise to sunset. Middle and East Keys are open Oct. 16 – March 31 from sunrise to sunset.

Hospital Key and Long Key are close year-round; visitors should remain 100-feet offshore of all closed islands.

 

Getting There

Since the Dry Tortugas National Park is located in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, there are only two ways to get to the park—either by boat or by seaplane.

The Yankee Freedom departs daily at 8 a.m. Reservations are required at least two hours prior to departure and can be made online.

The cost is $165 for adults, $155 for students, veterans, and for seniors of at least 62, and $120 for children ages four – 16. The $5 park entrance fee is included in the pricing, as well as on board breakfast and lunch, snorkeling gear and a 40-minute tour of the fort.

For more information, contact the Yankee Freedom at 800-624-0939 or visit http://yankeefreedom.com.

Key West Sea Plane Adventures offers two options. The half-day excursion, a four hour experience, costs $265 for adults, $212 for children 12 and under, and free for children under two.

The full-day excursion, and eight hour adventure, costs $465 for adults, $380 for children 12 and under, and free for children under two.

For more information, contact Key West Sea Plane Adventures at 305-293-9300 or visit http://keywestplanecharters.com.

Travelers can also get to the Dry Tortugas via private boat or charter. For more information, visit http://nps.gov/drto/planyouvisit/directions.

Facilities and Food

Since the fort was built in 1846, facilities are limited. There are no restrooms on the island neither are there any cafeterias or restaurants.

Park visitors traveling on board the Yankee Freedom are provided with a continental breakfast and buffet-style sandwich bar for lunch. The Yankee Freedom also sells snacks and beverages, including alcoholic drinks. Travelers are allowed to bring their own food as well.

The Yankee Freedom is equipped with several restrooms. 

Those traveling via Key West Sea Plane Adventures are provided with complementary beverages, but must bring their own food.

Activities

There are plenty of activities at the Dry Tortugas including snorkeling, scuba diving, bird watching, fishing, exploring the fort and camping. For more information on what to do at the park, visit http://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/outdooractivities.

Camping

A 10-site, primitive campground is located on Garden Key. Eight individual sites can each accommodate up to three two-person tents (a total of six people), and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Campsites have picnic tables and grills. Campers must bring all supplies, including fresh water, fuel, ice and food. All trash and garbage must be carried out upon departure.

The campground requires a nightly fee of $3 per person. For more information, visit http://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/camping.

Python problem continues to grow in Everglades

By BRANDON LUMISH
School of Communication
University of Miami

FLORIDA CITY, Fla.---“Seeing a python in the local pet shop, I was immediately drawn to it,” said Deborah Wilson, a Miami resident and snake owner. “The way they move around is just so unique.”

Many residents of South Florida bought Burmese pythons in the early 1990s. The python pet trade grew rapidly as the snake could be purchased inexpensively and could be found easily.

“I and, I think, many other South Floridians when originally buying the snake didn’t realize how massive and destructive the snake could get,” said Wilson. “I was very stupid and part of the reason why there is such a big problem today.”

The Burmese python can grow to more than 18 feet in size and weigh more than 200 pounds, making it one of the largest snakes in the world. The python pet trade brought the snakes to the United States, where many South Floridians were buying the snake.

In 2007, the estimated number of Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park tripled from amounts recorded before. The park realized the snake wasn’t just coming in from people dumping it in the Everglades, but were now breeding at the park.  However, the park still can’t say for sure how the python issue originated.

“There are two opinions on this - one is that pets in cages got out during Hurricane Andrew or second that pet owners who did not want the snakes as they got larger released them - it is not know for certain,” said Linda Friar, chief of Communications at Everglades and Dry Tortugas national parks.  “However they got there --- they have adapted to the habitat and began reproducing.”

In 2009, park officials estimated that between 5,000 and 180,000 Burmese pythons now live in the wild at Everglades National Park. With such a huge discrepancy, park officials know the problem is huge, but truly can’t know how big of a problem they have and how they should approach fixing the problem.

“We don't know exactly how many pythons are out there,” said Friar. “The interagency effort to gain information and better understand the species to inform a management strategy is being developed now - it is a relatively new issue that has taken time to address,” she said.

Pythons released from captivity create a problem for the entire food chain in the Everglades. The python has no specific diet, and basically eats anything that comes across its path. The problem has gotten so out of control that many efforts have begun to reduce the amount of pythons in the park.

The first initiative to reduce pythons was done by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in 2005. Christ attempt to weaken the Burmese python population was by hiring snake captures to kill as many Burmese pythons as possible.

“There are a set number of authorized agents with appropriate skills who have an annual permit to capture remove and provide the snakes to our science leads,” Friar said.  “As there is no official hunting allowed in the park, this tool has helped gather data to inform the scientists on better ways to manage the containment of this invasive exotic species,” she said.

While this initiative helped and many snakes were caught, there is only so much man can do. Pythons will breed and grow at a rate that is quadruple how fast hunters could possibly kill them. Therefore, national parks service people had to come up with another plan.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service placed Burmese pythons and three other species on the injurious wildlife list, which restricts importation and interstate trade.  Florida has also enacted legislation to restrict ownership in the state,” said Robert Reed, research wildlife biologist in an interview.

The only effective way to reduce pythons in the wild was to make laws not allowing people to illegally release exotic pets into the wild.

Non-native amnesty days were created across South Florida, where you could people can give away their non-traditional pets if they are unable to keep them without being prosecuted.

However, the Humane Society of the United States has called for even stricter rules on pythons and other exotic animals being released into the wild. 

"We should not pursue wasteful and futile strategies like bounty programs and public hunts," said Wayne Pacelle, the Humane Society's chief executive, in an interview on the Humane Society’s website. "They won't work, and could do more harm than good."

Florida in 2011 passed a law that Burmese python owners will have to pay a fee of $100 each year and place a tracking chip into their snake. The hope is this will finally be a way to curb the pet trade.

“I hope these new rules will ensure people won’t make the same mistake I did,” said Deborah Wilson. “Hopefully we can make the best out of this situation and fix the python problem for good.”

If You Go

Everglades National Park

40001 State Road 9336.
Homestead, Fla. 33034-6733.

Phone: 305-242-7700.

Fax: 305-242-7728.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Regional Office
3200 NE 151 St,
Miami, Fla. 33181.

Phone: 305-956-2500.

Ranger develops ‘finding freedom on bay’ project

By LAURA YEPES
School of Communication
University of Miami

As a park ranger for Biscayne National Park, Gary Bremen has several duties.

His primary role is informing the public about all aspects of the park. When he takes groups on tours he tells them about the history of the park, the attractions they could see and information about the wildlife within it.

There’s one thing that Bremen does, though, that’s outside of his regular duties, but well inside his interests. He has dedicated part of his time to finding connections between the lands located in the park and around South Florida to historical events, dating back to the Civil War.

At left, the branded hand of Captain Jonathan Walker (Photo courtesy of The Massachusetts Historical Society). Next, the front of the trading card for Dry Tortugas National Park in the Civil War to Civil Rights program (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

Bremen calls this project “Finding Freedom on Biscayne Bay,” a look into the role the land has played from when this country was first established, in the Underground Railroad, all the way to modern day cases of refugees fighting their way to the Florida shores.

“It is a loose association of historic events of people looking for freedom,” he said.

He explained that he first became interested in this idea by hearing stories of the Underground Railroad in Florida. After he became a park ranger, he started making more of these connections as he heard of stories of people coming through the state to gain their liberty, during the Civil War.

“It’s the kind of history that people don’t know about,” Bremen said.

According to Dr. Roslyn Howard, professor of anthropology and the director of the North American Indian Studies Program at the University of Central Florida, during the time that the Spanish had control of Florida they actively tried getting enslaved African-Americans to escape to the southernmost territory of the continent, promising them freedom in exchange for converting to Catholicism.

However, after the ownership of the peninsula passed hands a few times, from Spain to Britain, back to Spain again and finally was annexed by the U.S. in 1821, Howard said, the blacks, whom she prefers to call “freedom fighters” instead of slaves or former slaves, knew that they would have to either leave to Indian country with the Seminoles, which was in Oklahoma, or flee.

“Key Biscayne was a key place for those who decided to flee to the swamps,” she said. “They fled to the Bahamas from Cape Florida.”

These are the type of stories that Bremen is searching for --- accounts of people either using Florida as a means to reach freedom, or finding their freedom here.

Another story from the Civil War period that he was very excited about because he had recently made the connection was that of Capt. Jonathan Walker who was caught smuggling seven slaves within Cape Florida in 1845.

His hand was branded with the letters “SS” for “slave stealer,” though the people in the north preferred the term “slave savior.” After hearing the story he realized that it could have very likely have happened in Biscayne waters.

“There hasn’t been a direct connection between Biscayne National Park and the Underground Railroad before,” Bremen said. “But, I’m much closer than I’ve ever been to making that connection. And being that close to the story makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

The stories for Finding Freedom on Biscayne Bay cover a whole breadth of experiences, not just enslaved people trying to flee to freedom.

For example, there are stories from the 1930s of Chinese people being smuggled through Elliott Key.

The people who built homes out in Stiltsville were in search of some kind of freedom, away from everything else, Bremen said.

“There are lots of people who are trying to get away from life as it was for them,” he said.

And of course, in those experiences would also be included the most relevant to today of Cuban and Haitian refugees braving the waters to make it to American soil. Bremen said that they still find rafts and home-made boats out in the shores of Biscayne National Park.

His idea for the project goes beyond just gathering stories, though. Next fall there will be an art exhibit by the same name as the project. Paintings by Shannon Crowell, a Florida wildlife artist, depicting some of the places in Biscayne National Park that are relevant to the stories will be displayed. This is the first iteration of Finding Freedom on Biscayne Bay, Bremen said.

The second, he said he hopes will be collaboration with another National Park Service project called from Civil War to Civil Rights. This project began in the northeast region of the service by a team of interpreters in honor of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. The group came up with the idea of creating trading cards of events, people and places important to that period to be given out at the parks where they happened or where they are commemorated.

“It’s based on social science that people will remember better if they have a memento from an experience,” said Joanne Blacoe, an interpretive planner in the Northeast Regional Office and part of the team that began the project.

She said the main motivation for the project was to get these stories into the mainstream, a concept that goes hand in hand with Bremen’s idea. Cards for Biscayne National Park will be made by him based on the stories he’s collected, expanding the reach of the project that already covers 89 parks, or 22 percent of the entire national parks system, and connecting this region to all the others.

The back of the card describes a part of history that took place in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

“This helps Americans see the full breadth of what’s in their national parks,” Blacoe said.

Bremen said that it is his job as a park ranger to find ways to create interest in the park, and he sees this project as a new way for the diversifying population to connect not just to these sites, but also to human history.

“There are concepts that many people can relate to which are struggle, love and religion,” he said. “If there is a connection to something bigger it makes it relevant to some people.”

 

If You Go

• Biscayne National Park, 9700 SW 328^th St., Homestead, Fla.
• To get to Convoy Point, where the Dante Fascell Visitor Center is located: From the North: From the Florida Turnpike: Take the Florida Turnpike south, to Exit 6 (Speedway Blvd.). Turn left from exit ramp and continue south to SW 328th Street (North Canal Drive). Turn left and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately five miles, and the entrance is on the left. Or you can also take U.S. 1: Drive south to Homestead. Turn left on SW 328th Street (North Canal Drive), and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately nine miles, and the entrance is on the left.From the South: Traveling on U.S. 1 (Overseas Highway), drive north to Homestead. Turn right on SW 328th Street (North Canal Drive — first light after Florida Turnpike entrance), and continue to the end of the road. The entrance is approximately nine miles on the left.
• Convoy Point is open daily from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• The Fascell Visitor Center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• The water portion of the park is open 24 hours a day. Adams Key, which is only accessible by boat is a day use area only.
• Elliott Key is only accessible by boat. Visitors can take their own boat and pay a $20 a night docking fee which includes the use of one campsite for up to six people and two tents.
• For transportation to the island, visit the concessioner’s website at http://www.BiscayneUnderwater.com or call 305-230-1100. There is a $15 per night fee for camping.

Castle Clinton fascinates, but not widely known

King Memorial honors life of civil rights leader

Mountain trails offer peaceful, scenic views

Pelican Island refuge relaxing escape from reality

De Soto welcomes kids with numerous activities

New welcome center greets Big Cypress visitors

By ELIZABETH DE ARMAS
School of Communication
University of Miami

OCHOPEE, Fla. – In the middle of Big Cypress National Preserve, a 729,000-acre space that houses tropical plants, manatees, the Florida panther, foxes and birds --- lies a fairly small periwinkle building that hundreds of visitors stop by each year.

To a passerby, this building looks like an average-sized house --- there is nothing intriguing about it. But the minute you park and explore the area, you’ll realize that it isn’t just an ordinary building.

It is the new Big Cypress Swamp Welcome Center, which is full of information and exhibits.

The environmentally friendly building was built from the ground up in March 2010 after the Big Cypress management team realized that one visitor center located on the East side of the preserve was not enough.

Click on the video at the right to view a slideshow about the new Welcome Center prepared by writer Elizabeth De Armas.

According to Bob DeGross, the chief of Interpretation and Public Affairs, the new visitor center was built primarily because many tourists traveling from the West to the East had no place that would inform them of things to do along the way.

“It was primarily just to capture those visitors coming from the West to the East so we could provide them with information about opportunities within the preserve as they continued to the East,” DeGross said.

Before the Swamp Welcome Center was created, the Oasis Visitor Center on U.S. 41 was the only spot tourists could stop at to figure out what there was to do at the preserve. However, the Oasis Visitor Center was far to the east side of the preserve, and a lot of opportunities at the park are found on the West side.

The retrofitted Oasis Visitor Center was created in the 1980s making the exhibits seemingly outdated, especially with the advancement of technology in recent years.

However, the new Swamp Welcome Center has not only incorporated technology into their exhibit areas, but also made it an orientation center to “all of the public lands within the Big Cypress Swamp,” DeGross said.

There are two main exhibits at the Welcome Center that fuse audio and visual technology to create an amazing experience for first-time visitors. The first exhibit is found just outside of the entrance to the air-conditioned part of the visitor center, in one of the breezeways.

The alligator is one of the many animals found in the Big Cypress National Preserve. From the boardwalk of the Swamp Welcome Center, visitors can see these creatures in their natural habitat (Photos by Elizabeth de Armas).

This is the Big Cypress Watershed exhibit, which allows individuals to learn about how the water flows from the Big Cypress through Florida.

The best part --- it is an interactive exhibit. Individuals can pull on a handle and watch water flow as it does on a daily basis in the ecosystem.

“On one side, you have more development where water is being used and not making it out to the coastal estuaries where if you go to the natural areas, it is being allowed to flow more through the coastal estuaries,” DeGross said. “I think that is an interesting exhibit.”

But, DeGross said the exhibit he sees most visitors taking advantage of is the night sounds exhibits, which allows people to hear how certain animals sound when industrial noises are not shrouding over the noises of nature.

Click on the audio bar above to hear a sample of the night sounds exhibit.

“You can turn on the different night sounds whether it be mosquitoes buzzing or thunder or alligators bellowing or different night birds,” DeGross said. “And, you can create a symphony of these various night sounds that may be interesting.”

From November to March, one of the primary reasons visitors stop at the Swamp Welcome Center is to spot manatees. From the boardwalk of the Swamp Welcome Center, this is the view that visitors get of a manatee that has just come up for a breath. The water at the Welcome Center is clear enough that spotting manatees is easy and fun.

These two exhibits are just a couple of the exciting opportunities readily available to tourists, natives and visitors coming through the welcome center. Outside of the visitor center, the first treading machine is displayed and inside the visitor center, a display shows what ranger uniforms used to look like.

Around the center there are also different stations, which includes a station about the Florida panther, a station about the sensor cameras placed throughout the preserve, a timeline outlining the Big Cypress history and a map.

A mini gift shop also allows visitors to by snacks, soft drinks, water bottles and souvenirs such a t-shirts, books, patches and postcards. And, the environment was kept in mind during the building process.

“A lot of people coming from the West to the East do think that it is a good facility because they have that opportunity to get the information about what they can do rather than passing everything and then finding out afterwards,” DeGross said. “The building was built with the environment in mind using recycled material and other material. There is a solar array associated with it that we are having installed shortly.”

Although the center itself provides visitors with many unique opportunities during the peak tourist season that runs from November to March, the Welcome Center’s boardwalk is the spot to visit. Why? Manatee season. During this time, it is more than likely that visitors will spot up to three manatees in one hour. And, that is a site to see.

On the boardwalk, park rangers give 10 to 15 minute talks about Big Cypress National Preserve and the manatees.

The Swamp Welcome Center houses many butterflies, including the Monarch butterfly, which is pictured here drinking nectar from a flower. Although there is no stationed butterfly garden, there is a grassy area near the parking lot where more than 10 butterflies can be seen in less than a minute.

Andrew Friedner, a national park ranger, said there is no other place in the world that visitors can get versatile experience, other than Big Cypress.

“Think about this,” Friedner said. “Where else in the world on a given day can you see anything from an alligator to a manatee to a Florida Panther?”

Jennifer Marie, a visitor from New Jersey, agrees with Friedner’s rhetorical question. She said she has been able to see more at this visitor than she has been able to see in a lifetime.

“I am so impressed with everything I got to learn and experience at this welcome center,” she said. “I had never seen manatees or alligators or experienced a night sound exhibit or met a park ranger. And, in just one hour, I’ve seen it all.”

DeGross said that he hopes people who visit the center will learn about the swamp and the different management issues affecting the swamp. The Swamp Welcome Center is staffed with rangers and faculty who are knowledgeable about the preserve and can also answer any questions that visitors may have.

“You can very easily leave the center and within a matter of just 20 to 30 minutes be out in one of the world’s largest wild areas in the eastern U.S. and I think that is one of the great things that the Big Cypress provides us with,” DeGross said. “And the center itself gives people the opportunity to learn how they can explore the Big Cypress and take advantage of this wild space that is here for all of us to enjoy.”

 

If You Go

• For more information, visit http://www.nps.gov/bicy/planyourvisit/visitorcenters.htm
• Address: 33000 Tamiami Trail East, Ochopee, Fla., 34141
• Phone: 239-695-4758
• The center is opened from Mondays through Sundays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., year round, except for Christmas
• Ranger-led programs are conducted seasonally, but times vary
• Debit cards, credit cards and cash are accepted at the gift shop
• Bring your camera because there are many photo opportunities.
• Make sure to wear sunscreen.

Safety often overlooked by visitors to Everglades

By ALEXIS KANAREK
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- With winter break around the corner, more and more families are looking for a place to relax, kick back, and enjoy time together in a beautiful, yet fun setting.

Our national parks provide visitors with just that.

Whether it’s hiking, canoeing, or getting a picnic together, Everglades National Park, the third largest park in the lower 48 states, is the prime location for an adventurous family outing.

At right, an alligator in Everglades National Park’s Shark Valley (Photos by Alexis Kanarek). Below, an alligator in one of the park's wetlands.

There are four South Florida park areas to visit and the Everglades will prove to be a unique experience at each one. This network of wetlands and forests, fed by a river flowing out of Lake Okeechobee towards the Florida Bay, contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere, supports hundreds of different bird, fish, mammal and reptile species, and is home to over 35 endangered or protected species, including the American crocodile, the Florida panther and the West Indian manatee.

Activities range from tram and boat tours, to camping and fishing, to bird watching and alligator spotting.

However, not all is fun and games when at the Everglades.

Safety is an issue that is often overlooked by both first-time and regular visitors.

“When I first started helping out at the Everglades, there was a death in Florida Bay, when someone jumped into the water and swam after something and drowned,” said Mary Plumb, one of the park’s public information officers. “The body wasn’t found until a few days later and it kicked in a major search and rescue type effort that the law enforcement rangers and multijurisdictional agencies got involved in.”

This accidental death is just one of the many avoidable tragedies that occur in national parks each year. Listening to park rangers’ advice and their various safety tips helps to ensure a positive, accident-free experience, allowing visitors to enjoy all the park has to offer.

It’s always fun to escape city life and go kayaking, cycling, or boating. However, national parks are natural environments that pose risks that tend to go ignored. These remote and rugged places are full of rivers, cliffs, and wildlife, and are subject to unpredictable changes in weather.

“In the past five years we have only had one visitor with a reportable injury caused by wildlife,” said Linda Friar, Everglades National Park public information officer. “A visitor walking through the campground at night wearing flip-flops stepped on a rattlesnake and was bitten.”

Seemingly common sense, there are various necessary precautions one must take. For example, not wearing flip flops, treating the animals with caution and respect, bringing the right gear, wearing sunscreen and protective clothing, and remembering to plan ahead by choosing activities that match one’s stamina and fitness level.

Rules as obvious as staying within the boundaries of the park’s trails have eluded visitors in the past and continue to pose risks for those eager to get that perfect picture.

“So the rangers are constantly having to inform parents to keep their kids away from the wood rails [on the trails],” said Plumb. “Don’t put your kids up on the wood rail to get a picture of you and the alligator in the background.”

Although pictures and souvenirs seem invaluable at the moment, in reality, they pale in comparison to the importance of keeping one’s self, and those they are with, safe.

“Our injury rate is very low overall and lower than many national parks of similar size and character,” said Friar. “We experience very few injuries caused by wildlife. National parks in the West tend to experience more injuries due to the nature of the wildlife (bears, etcetera).”

Even though injuries aren’t as common in Everglades National Park, for rangers, visitor safety is an important part of managing the park and a constant struggle.

Due to the vast opportunities to explore the wilderness of these undeveloped areas, visitors often face the risks that accompany venturing into the unfamiliar.

“There is a lot of information provided at the initiation sites for any kind of walks and plenty of information on anything to do with harming, molesting, or getting in the way, in any way, of the wildlife,” said Plumb. “It is illegal and you will receive a fine and there will be law enforcement rangers who will be walking the trails and enforcing them.”

Additionally, there are interpretive rangers walking the trails, throughout the park, attempting to tackle this issue from an educational standpoint.

At the Everglades, vital park functions include search and rescue (SAR) missions, which are regularly conducted by law enforcement rangers and involve responding to requests for assistance by lost or sometimes injured visitors. These operations often take place in isolated and remote areas, accessible only by boat or aircraft, within the vast wilderness of the park.

In order to improve the park’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to these situations, with the necessary supplies and manpower, and to educate visitors and the community as a whole on the importance of safety when visiting the Everglades, the park accepts donations for their SAR program on their website.

At right, alligator hunter Shane Sultan approaches an alligator at Shark Valley. Below, Sultan getting closer to the alligator, showing what visitors of the park should avoid doing. Last, an alligator that Sultan hunted in the Everglades areas outside the park.

However essential and competent these public safety services may be to visitors of the park and nearby communities, they can only do so much. It is up to visitors to take their safety into their own hands by being responsible and aware of the possible risks involved in going to a national park.

Regardless of the activity, visitors need to be aware of their own personal safety at all times.

Whether it’s fishing, boating or camping, the park provides explicit instructions to prevent and protect visitors from harming themselves, the wildlife, and the environment.

“Generally injuries result when visitors approach wildlife too closely, or are intentionally provoking the animals and the animals respond in a defensive manner,” said Friar. “We encourage visitors to follow the park guidelines with regards to safe wildlife viewing.”

In these situations, however, visitors aren’t the only ones who get hurt.

“Animals are frequently harmed by visitors such as animals struck by cars, but in the one snake bite incident the snake was held for identification and then released by a ranger unharmed,” said Friar.

Park regulations prohibit visitors from touching, feeding or harassing any of the wildlife. Their safety and regulations brochures list the park’s policies when engaging in any of the various activities they offer.

These include: attending to fires at all times, not tying lines or attaching anything to the trees for any reason, and not leaving garbage out, which would attract animals, just to name a few.

“Park brochures and exhibits advise visitors to stay a certain specified distance from wildlife for safe viewing,” said Friar. “We also sometimes install temporary fences or barriers to separate people and wildlife and many of our most popular wildlife viewing areas have permanent boardwalks, fences and barriers to ensure visitor safety.”

On ranger walks, specifically, warnings are constantly reiterated due to the activity’s proximity to the park’s wildlife.

“We are constantly informing visitors of safety tips and regulations, especially on the ranger walks,” said Plumb. “For example, what the rangers will tell you during the ranger walks is that the animals have become so acclimated to the multitudes of people that they see walking on that trail, that the animals, who are in their natural domain, see us as being the ones in the suit.”

The animals that inhabit the commonly walked paths of the Everglades are accustomed to the multitudes of people and tend to view them, not themselves, as the park’s entertainment.

“They are living their lives alongside the trail and population of human beings walking down this boardwalk, so they come very close to the trail, much closer than they would if you were anywhere away from the trail,” said Plumb. “If you were out there in the natural area, where they are more dispersed and not used to being near people, there is no way they would come that close, but because of that particular location [of the trail] they are used to people so they come very close to the trail.”

However accustomed to the human visitors these animals may seem, they are still dangerous, wild animals, two facts people tend to overlook, but shouldn’t; considering the most common activities are walking and hiking the trails, with over 70 percent of visitors partaking in them, according to the Everglades National Park Visitor Study.

“A lot of tourists love to go out into the Everglades and go on tours to see the alligators, but it’s very important that you don’t try to get too close to the animals,” said Shane Sultan, a 31-year-old alligator hunter who frequents Everglades National Park.

Sultan, who regularly visits Shark Valley, located in the north of the park along U.S. 41, has witnessed, first hand, some of the possible risks that accompany venturing into national parks full of wildlife.

“Even though the officials at the park tell you not to touch or get close to the alligators, one of my times at Shark Valley, I saw this man go up to one of the alligators anyways and touch it,” said Sultan. “Even though he didn’t get hurt, it was a very bad idea because it could have ended in tragedy.”

However, not everyone is as fortunate.

“There was one year over by Markham Park, which borders the Everglades, that a young woman was out jogging and she ended up being attacked by an alligator,” said Sultan. “When the trappers and FWC (Florida Wildlife Commission) finally got the alligator, they brought it to the alligator processing plant where I worked at the time.”

Unfortunately, the victim did not survive.

“Nobody really knows what happened,” said Sultan. “She was probably out jogging and fell into the water, which was very close by and inhabited by alligators.”

Fatalities, although uncommon in Everglades National Park, could, for the most part, be prevented if people are careful and avoid the known areas in which alligators and other animals tend to gather.

“When you are out in the park you want to avoid areas such as alligator nests, the mother is always very protective of her eggs and if anyone comes too close she could potentially attack,” said Sultan. “These nests could be anywhere, either near the trails or far from them.”

Nests aren’t the only areas visitors should avoid.

“During the dry season the wildlife often congregates around water holes or other habitat areas that are in close proximity to the public,” said Friar. “This enables visitors to see a large variety of animals in their natural setting and up close, however it can lead to human and wildlife interaction.”

Sultan, like many others in his profession, has also experienced emergency situations and has required some rescuing of his own.

“I was alligator hunting in the middle of Lake Okeechobee at nighttime, which is when the legal hunting hours are, and we were on an airboat going pretty fast through all the saw grass, which was six to eight feet high, in search of a good sized alligator and we couldn’t see anything around us,” said Sultan. “There was a fenced in pipe in the middle of the lake and we crashed straight into it.”

The airboat ended up getting stuck on the fence, the bow of the boat going up in the air while the stern went down, causing it to sink.

“The boat ended up sinking in the middle of the lake, which is full of alligators and snakes, specifically water moccasins, in the middle of the night,” said Sultan. “So there was nothing you could do at that point, the boat was basically capsized and full of water.”

With just the captain and another passenger aboard, Sultan recalls trekking in the marsh frantically trying to get the water out of the boat to lift it, but being unable too.

“There was nothing we could do to bale all the water out of the boat so we decided to call the law enforcement and coast guard to come looking for us because we didn’t know our exact location,” said Sultan. “It was a very big lake so the helicopter had to come looking for us and when it finally found us, it sent the FWC over on their airboat to come and rescue us.”

Although most park visitors wouldn’t partake in such dangerous activities, like Sultan’s alligator hunting, this accident like so many others was avoidable.

“It would have been nice to have a GPS and know exactly where we were,” said Sultan. “We were riding through this tall saw grass, at night, and there were no flashing beacons, no warning signs or anything like that.”

According to Sultan, one should be respectful of the alligators, whose habitats have been encroached on, due to expanding developments.

“Obviously we are invading on their territory by expanding developments into their habitats, so once you are in the park there are alligators all over the place and there are times when they are actually in the middle of the path,” said Sultan. “The trail winds throughout the inside of the Everglades and you are basically surrounded by them and the wildlife that inhabits them.”

Through his years of experience with alligators in Florida’s southern wilderness, Sultan has compiled a few safety tips of his own.

“So you want to be very careful by not getting too close to them or provoking them,” said Sultan. “You obviously don’t want to feed them or let them to get used to you and coming up to you because that is when they could really become a potential threat.”

If You Go

Everglades National Park
Address: 40001 State Road 9336, Homestead, Fla. 33034
Phone: 305-242-7700
Website: http://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm
Safety and Regulations: http://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/safetyregs.htm
Advisory: If there is an accident or injury, visitors are urged to call 911

Safety Tips:

• Wear Sun protection
• Bring adequate attire and supplies (sturdy footwear, hat, water…)
• Check the weather conditions and dress accordingly
• Keep hydrated and bring salty foods, which will prevent water loss
• Don’t overestimate your abilities
• Avoid alcohol or narcotics
• Drive carefully
• Don’t interact with any of the wildlife
• Follow instructions and abide by park’s safety guidelines and regulations

Travel gives writer new appreciation for nature

Pelican Island offers counterpoint to urban life

National memorial or community organization?

Fowey Rocks Lighthouse transferred to park

By BRANDON LUMISH
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- Jumping back on the boat, Madison Keys, a Miami resident visiting Biscayne National Park had finally made it back to the tour boat from the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse.

“I never thought I was going to see this boat again,” yelled Keys. “I swam way too far away from you guys.”

Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, located southeast off Cape Florida was constructed in 1878. The lighthouse was recently given ownership to Biscayne National Park. The project to build the lighthouse took over two years and was tricky because of its location off the shore. The lighthouse was over a $160,000 project.

“The Coast Guard was excessing the light and advertised its availability.

This picture features a painting of Fowey Rocks Lighthouse in 1800s. The lighthouse was constructed in 1878 (Photos courtesy of Biscayne National Park).

The preferred method of excess is always simple transfer within the Federal

Government,” said Biscayne National Parks Ranger Gary Bremen.  “The American Lighthouse Protection Act makes it easy for lights to be transferred to the NPS, and the park's Cultural Resource Specialist Chuck Lawson did the legwork to make it happen.”

“It’s amazing to think that well over 100 years ago they were able to build something like this when resources were not abundant,” said Shelby Dowell, a Key Biscayne resident who took a boat tour to the lighthouse. “This lighthouse is truly remarkable.”

Workers were forced to use Soldier Key, a small island four miles east of the lighthouse as headquarters. Crewmembers had to live on the wooden platforms that were built first during most of the construction of the lighthouse. To prevent being hit by storm’s crewmembers built tents out of some of the wood they were going to use for the project.

“You could see the lighthouse was built a long time ago. It was pretty rusty,” Keys said. “It didn’t stop me from jumping off it many times though!”

At right, the lighthouse during the middle of a summer day. Below,  another view of the lighthouse.

During construction, weather was constantly an issue. For many months crewmembers were unable to even reach the lighthouse and had to halt the project. Once the project resumed, on two separate occasions, large vessels crashed into the reefs located directly to the west of the lighthouse.

“The reef behind the lighthouse is hard to see I’ve heard, “ said Donald Jones, who is captain to a vessel called Dominica located in Miami. “Luckily we have radar and most reefs that would cause damage have been mapped out so it’s not as much of a problem. I can’t imagine what it was like back then!”

The vessels that hit the lighthouse during its construction were called Carondelet and Arakanapka. The Arakanapka was completely destroyed during the accident but the Carondelet suffered far less damage. “The tour guide said some of this wreckage that you can see on the lighthouse is from the Arakanapka,” said Darshely Yodis, visiting Biscayne National Park from New York.

With the obscure reef located behind the lighthouse, the construction of Fowey Rocks Lighthouse was crucial. The lighthouse was able to provide the light boaters needed to avoid hitting a reef located directly west of the lighthouse.

“With the lighthouse located there now and improved technology, avoiding the reefs has become not a problem,” Jones said.

The lighthouse is 110 feet tall. The structure for the lighthouse is built with cast iron, has a screw pile foundation, a platform and a skeletal tower. A housekeeper used to main the grounds of the lighthouse, but the light was automated in 1975, eliminating the need for that position.

“I think looking at this lighthouse really showed me some history of this country and how we have come a long way,” said Jenny Moore, a Key Biscayne resident and frequent visitor to Key Biscayne National Park. “Lighthouses these days are almost an afterthought and this one is so old.”

The lighthouse is located more than seven miles off shore from Biscayne National Park Visitor Center at Homestead and can only be reached by boat. The Rickenbacker Marina has boat tours that are available to see the lighthouse. “Booking a tour was easy and I thought seeing the lighthouse was very interesting,” said Darshely Yodis.

Unfortunately, the lighthouse has undergone its share of vandalism and abuse over the years. On Oct. 2, 2012, the lighthouse ownership was transferred to Biscayne National Park. With the park’s ownership, the lighthouse will be protected.

“Lighthouses have a lot of symbolism associated with them that make them popular. There is romance, danger, safety, nostalgia, history. Having the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse as part of Biscayne National Park is a logical and exciting addition,” said Biscayne National Park Ranger Gary Bremen.

Biscayne National Park, located in South Florida, primarily protects the Biscayne Bay, which is frequently visited by divers. The park covers over 172,000 acres, mainly consisting of water. The park is mainly used for swimming and scuba diving.

“I come to Biscayne National Park almost every month with my son,” said Shane Morse, a resident of Homestead who has a 15-year-old son. “It is our favorite place to scuba dive because of all the reefs that are located in this area.”

 

If You Go

Fowey Rocks Lighthouse

• Reservations for boat tour: Rickenbacker Marina, 3301 Rickenbacker Causeway
• Call 305-218-2249

Biscayne National Park Driving Directions

From the North

• Convoy Point, location of the park Visitor Center, can be reached from either the Florida Turnpike or from U.S. 1.
• From the Florida Turnpike: Take the Florida Turnpike south, to Exit 6 (Speedway Boulevard). Turn left from exit ramp and continue south to S.W. 328th Street (North Canal Drive). Turn left and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately five miles and the entrance is on the left.
• From U.S. 1: Drive south to Homestead. Turn left on SW 328th Street (North Canal Drive), and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately nine miles, and the entrance is on the left.

From the South

• Traveling on U.S. 1 (Overseas Highway), drive north to Homestead. Turn right on SW 328th Street (North Canal Drive — first light after Florida Turnpike entrance) and continue to the end of the road. The entrance is approximately nine miles on the left.
• 9700 SW 328th St.,
 Homestead, Fla. 33033.

Hours of Operation

• Open 24 hours everyday all year.
• Visitor Center open daily from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Fees & Reservations

• Tent camping-$15
• Group tent camping- $30
• Boat Camping- $20
• Boat Tours- http://biscaynenational.com

Biscayne Park appeals to kids with special activities

By BRITTANY WEINER
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla.--- Oliver Gill walked up to the touch table in the Dante Fascell Visitor Center with wide eyes and a smile larger than life.  As a fourth grader looking to play, he no longer was going to use action figures.  Live coral, puffer fish and giant hallowed turtles were his new toys for the day.

He was part of a group visiting Biscayne National Park here.  The park is just one of the 58 major national parks and other units that make for a great field trip for children. 

Located in South Florida, this particular park preserves and protects sensitive areas of Biscayne Bay. The park, which is just 21 miles east of the Everglades National Park, became a national monument in 1968.  It was elevated to national park status in 1980 in order to protect a rare species of undersea life.

Ranger Yelitza Sepulveda explains general information about hurricanes to children. The video is about 10 minutes and shows footage of the devastation (Photos by Brittany Weiner).

However, Biscayne differs from most national parks in that it is mostly water with little plots of land.  This makes it an especially fun park for children such as Oliver to visit as they get to learn and experience the true beauty of marine life. 

The park itself is referred to as having the “simple beauty of a child’s drawing,” and this undoubtedly makes it the perfect place for a school field trip.

Vivian Burns, a sixth-grade science teacher at Coconut Palm K-8 Academy, chose the park as the destination for the school’s field trip because of the connection to nature that the park offers.   She, along with two other teachers took 58 sixth-grade students to the park. 

“It’s real life as opposed to what they learn in the classroom,” said Burns.  “They get to see what scientists observe and actually touch and feel things.  There’s only so much you can learn from a textbook.

Yelitza Sepulveda, one of the park rangers for Environmental Education, rounds up the school group after lunch.  She is about to lead the children upstairs to the Visitor Center theater to watch the video on the devastation of Hurricane Andrew.

Yelitza Sepulvelda, the park ranger for Environmental Education, leads the tours for school groups that visit the park and also agrees with this view on education. 

“We are not interested in making young children pay,” said Sepulveda.  “We just want to make sure that they get the ultimate learning experience.”  

Sepulveda, among other rangers, works to keep the park’s programs interesting for children.  Because learning about all of the different places that the park protects can be overwhelming for children, Sepulveda splits up the park into different stations. 

“We run six stations that really give the kids an all-around feel for everything in the park,” said Sepulveda.  “We kind of explain it like a puzzle so it’s easier for them to understand.”

The six categories that the park protects are the mangrove shoreline, the bay, the wildlife inventory, the seagrass connection, the northernmost part of the Keys, and the northern part of the third largest coral reef in the world. 

The touch table is one of the stations that the children frequent during their tour. The table is located on the second floor of the Dante Fascell Visitor Center and has everything from dried sponges, coral, and puffer fish to hallowed turtles.

Each place has a “station” where the kids frequent such as the coral station, which is at the bay, and hardwood hammock, which is on the shore.  They spend a decent amount of time in each area just enjoying the fresh air, learning, and being out of the classroom.

“My favorite thing I did today was see the pelicans,” said fourth grader Oliver Gill.  “We had to write down how many animals we saw in the park and I thought that was really fun.”

In addition to the outdoor activities, school groups also get led around the Dante Fascell Visitor Center, where there are additional learning opportunities.  Children frequent the touch table, which is filled with preserved wildlife, the museum and its exhibits, and they watch a short movie on the overview of the park from the devastation of Hurricane Andrew.

“I thought it was extremely appropriate to bring them here,” said Jeanette Martins, another teacher on the field trip.  “The kids study these topics in our curriculum this year so it was great for them to get exposure to these resources.”

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about kids activities at the park narrated by Ranger Yelitza Sepulvelda and prepared by writer Brittany Weiner.

The touch table is one of the most interesting features for kids, in that they get to feel different preserved animals.  There are dried sponges, puffer fish, birds, horseshoe crabs, and even large turtles.

“Sometimes as an activity I will take a couple of broken pieces from the same animal and ask the kids to piece them together,” said Gretchen Messa, a seasonal ranger at the park. “They love it.”

Children tend to prefer scheduled tours, where they get to take part in activities that they normally do not get to do when they go with their families.

“It’s way more interesting going on a tour than going with my family,” said Gill.  “I especially liked that we got to watch a movie!”

Messa usually leads the children through the inside part of the tour.  There is a mangrove tunnel, which simulates the actual outdoor mangrove, and leads the group into the museum.  Children get led around different stations which mirror the outside stations that they visited, but get to learn more facts and see preserved wildlife and fossils.   

“We focus on kids coming here and knowing what a national park is,” said Sepulveda.  “We want it to be as educational as possible, but also fun.

Gretchen Messa, one of the seasonal rangers, is holding the Gray Nickerbeak, which is a sea pearl. Some of the dried species are enclosed in plastic casings and displayed on the table next to the touch table because they are more delicate species.

For kids who are extremely enthusiastic about national parks, Biscayne also offers its Junior Ranger Program.  The program can be completed at any of the three national parks in South Florida- Big Cypress, Biscayne, or the Everglades.

“The kids who come here to become Junior Rangers are big enthusiasts,” said Messa.  “Most kids have been to 30 parks or so.”

In order to become a Junior Ranger and earn a badge, kids must choose from and complete at least three activities in the Junior Ranger book.  The book looks similar to a school workbook and is printed on recycled paper with soy and vegetable inks.

Some of the activities include the coral reef search, which is a word-search of words related to the coral reef, and the estuary escape, which is a maze that has different questions about the park.  The front of the book also includes a section where kids can mark an “X” on plants and animals that they see and hear while touring.

Lastly, Junior Rangers are awarded a badge.

“It’s a huge ceremony,” said Messa.  “They stand under the arrow head, complete the oath, and receive their badge.”

For the even more serious park enthusiasts, kids who complete this program at all three South Florida parks receive a water drop patch, which represents the water at all three parks.

“We just like to see them smile,” said Sepulveda.  “And they definitely do when they receive their patch at the end of a long day.”

           

If You Go

Biscayne National Park is located at 9710 SW 328 St., Homestead, Fla.  The visitor center is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. everyday. 

To organize a school field trip, contact Yelitza Sepulveda at Yelitza_Sepulveda@nps.gov, or 305-230-1100.

The park pays for transportation and requires that either teachers or parents supervise children.  School groups also bring their own lunches.  The trip is virtually free.

Make sure to check the website as well for different types of tours and exhibits offered at the center.

Tropical storms leave their marks on Biscayne Park

By DANIELA RODRIGUEZ
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- Hurricane Sandy, which was later renamed Superstorm Sandy after its devastating effects on the northeast, left many people without power, running water or without a home.

Fortunately, the harsh effects that were felt in the northeast did not affect Florida to that extent. But Biscayne National Park was one of the places in Florida that didn’t escape so easily from Hurricane Sandy.

Click on the video at the left to view an audio slideshow about storm damage at Biscayne National Park narrated and prepared by writer Daniela Rodriguez.

Most of Elliott Key, Biscayne National Park’s largest island, was closed from public access for two days after moderate damage was done to the island’s camping area as well as the harbors where the visitors with boats can dock their boat.

But after careful review of the island and the damage it incurred, it was recently opened earlier this month, but only parts of it.

The harbor, oceanside boardwalk and portions of the island’s campground remain closed indefinitely, since it will take some time to repair and cleanup the area.

At right, walking the boardwalk around the Visitor Center at Biscayne National Park, endless ocean scenery can be viewed (Photos by Daniela Rodriguez). Below, the presence of cyclists is very prevalent at Biscayne National Park. They like to meet there in groups to regroup and take a break.

The University Dock, Spite Highway, restrooms, the Oceanside group campsite and bayside family camping areas are all open to the public.

The dock south of the harbor is closed to the public since it suffered the greatest damage.

Currently, only small vessels, such as canoes, kayaks and other small boats that can be hand-carried from the shoreline are allowed to get to the island. Vessels, such as large boats, or visitors coming from across the bay and need the dock, will not be able to get to the island.

“We realize that opening an island without reopening the harbor makes it a difficult situation for many of our visitors,” said Biscayne National Park Superintendent Mark Lewis in a news release.

There was also a buildup of debris on the island that interfered with the habitat of a sea turtle nesting area.

Volunteers from the Coastal Cleanup Corporation provided their time and effort to cleaning up the debris left by Hurricane Sandy.

The Coastal Cleanup Corporation is a non-profit organization with 501(c)3 public charity status founded in 2011. Their mission is to remove marine debris from the southeast Florida coastline and to educate citizens about the problem of marine debris in the water.

With some funding by the Sea Turtle Conservancy program, they are able to get the supplies needed to cleanup, such as bags to dispose the debris in and safety supplies to prevent exposure to any harmful substances.

Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, where Biscayne National Park suffered severe damage, the park created a detailed plan called the Hurricane Plan for the protection of life and property, while also taking into account the needs of employees to prepare their own homes and families for an incoming storm.

This plan is updated annually and is edited when needed to tailor to the anticipated intensity of the storm.

Some of the preparations that are done are securing and shuttering all park buildings, moving the park’s entire fleet of boats, which is over 20 boats, out of the water, posting closure signs throughout the park and providing updated information to the public via Biscayne’s website and the park’s information line.

But according to a 2006 report by the National Parks Conservation Association, NPCA assessed Biscayne National Park and gave the park a score of 58 out of 100, which ranks park resources in poor condition.

At right, trees provide a lot of shade by the Visitor Center at Biscayne National Park, where a lot of birds make it their home. Below, Hurricane Sandy washed up a lot of debris onto the shore, which affected the health of the plant-life at Biscayne National Park.

When it was assessed, the NPCA pointed out that the park faced a comprised coral reef framework, declines in important fish populations, alteration and destruction of coastal wetlands, and strains to the limited freshwater supply.

The NPCA was created in 2000 to assess the condition of natural and cultural resources in the parks and determine if the parks are well equipped and protected. They provide information and assessments of the parks that will help policy-makers, the public and the National Park Service improve conditions in national parks.

Many hurricanes, such as Ike, Isaac and Sandy, add more strain to the already poor conditions NPCA said Biscayne National Park already had. But NPCA mentions in their report that with the proper funding, Biscayne National Park could dramatically improve its park resources.

Biscayne’s base budget has increased by just two percent from 2001, with a total fiscal budget of $3.53 million in 2005. The park would need a base budget increase of at least $465,000 to increase law enforcement and maintenance capabilities.

“We are understaffed and have less money than before. There are 32 docks and 17 of them are damaged, so repairing these docks are a priority to bring in revenue for the park,” said Astrid Rybeck, a park ranger at Biscayne National Park.

Rybeck, who is also the incident command manager at Biscayne National Park, believes that without the necessary funds, the recovery process is deeply affected.

“Making sure the park is safe is our number one goal. We have to protect the integrity of the park,” said Rybeck.

 

If You Go

Biscayne National Park
9700 SW 328 St., 
Homestead, Fla. 33033
http://www.nps.gov/bisc/index.htm

Visitor Information
305-230-7275

Boat tours, snorkeling, SCUBA diving and gift shop
305-230-1100

Park Administrative Offices
305-230-1144

Fisheries Education Class/Grounding Awareness Class
305-230-1144, ext. 036

Sea turtles are key part of Tortugas park’s wildlife

By EMMA REYES
School of Communication
University of Miami

DRY TORTUGAS, Fla. – It was 1513 when Ponce de Leon named the small collection of sand and coral islands today known as Dry Tortugas National Park, “Las Tortugas,” Spanish for “The Turtles.” This came about because of the frequent sightings of sea turtles around the islands.

Sea turtles season is listed from May 1 to Oct. 31 in Florida, but according to Kayla Nimmo, Biological Sciences technician of the Dry Tortugas National Park, nests have sometimes happened outside of this time period.

At right, the view of the ocean from the loading dock (Photo by Emma Reyes). Below, the view of Loggerhead Key (Photo courtesy by National Park Service).

Nimmo monitors the sea turtles during nesting season and marks any new nests as she walks around the islands. She monitors the nests for hatching and, after three or more days, that the nests hatch and she records the contents to determine the nesting fate.

Biologists have been monitoring sea turtles nesting activity within the park’s boundaries since 1980. Due to the high activity of nesting in the Dry Tortugas National Park, which is the location for nesting in the Florida Keys.

There are three species of sea turtles that can be spotted between Key West and the Dry Tortugas National Park: the loggerhead, hawksbill and the green turtles. However, there are other species that have been seen around the park.

“We get occasional reports from the seaplane of leatherbacks in and near the park. Kemp’s Ridleys have also been seen here,” said Nimmo in an e-mail.

Sea turtles are the largest quantity of wildlife in the islands with about 250 nests that produce 15,000 hatchlings each summer.

The highest numbers of nesting of sea turtles in the park come from the species of loggerheads and greens.

“On average, they are about the same,” said Nimmo.

There is no actual cause as to why the sea turtles prefer a location like the Tortugas, but Nimmo believes that it’s because the sea turtles need sandy beaches.

“I cannot state this for certain, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that sea turtles require sandy beaches in which to nest and return near their natal beaches to nest. Thus, areas that have historically had little sand or high rates of exploitation have reduced nesting, whereas pristine sandy areas have reduced impacts.”

Nimmo added that certain areas of Florida, such as the Canaveral region located in Central East Coast, have higher densities of sea turtle nesting than at the Dry Tortugas.

In 1821, mariners in Loggerhead Key were attracted to the sea turtles for food, but discovered that the Tortugas was a dangerous place because of the more than 250 shipwrecks that have been reported in the waters.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about Dry Tortugas sea turtles narrated by writer Emma Reyes

There are five species in the Tortugas region that are listed to be either threatened or endangered: the loggerhead, green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley and leatherback.

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a turtle capturing, tagging and tracking project to determine survival, growth rates, diet of juvenile green turtles, residence times in the park, core use areas for the three species of loggerhead, green and hawksbill and definitive links to other nesting grounds.

At left, a green turtle (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service). Next, the park entrance at Fort Jefferson. Last, a look at some of the underwater color in the park.

The turtles are captured by stopping reproductive females on nesting beaches and catching turtles in the water using methods such as rodeo, hand-capture and dip-netting. When each of the turtles is caught, it is tagged, measured and sampled for genetics, isotopes and diet.

The methods used to determine daily location and movement patterns for the tagged turtles are satellite and acoustic telemetry techniques. These techniques are used to calculate home ranges, core use areas and to statistically review the extent of overlap of these areas with the Dry Tortugas Research Natural Area.

The Dry Tortugas park website has a link to the website where this tracking is available. The website has a long list of the turtles and their individual information. Users can subscribe to receive daily updates of the project. For more information on this, visit http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?project_id=402.

Although Ponce de Leon named the islands as “Las Tortugas” because of the frequent sightings of sea turtles, the Dry Tortugas as they are known today came about because there is not a natural source of water in the island.

Fort engineers designed a system to collect rainwater in the cisterns under the gunrooms at Fort Jefferson. There are 109 cisterns and they hold 1.5 million gallons of water.

Rebecca D’Alessil, the Tortugas’s ferry tour guide, said people who lived in the Fort got very sick because of the unhealthy conditions of the stored water.

“Almost everybody was going to the doctor for dysentery, which is caused by drinking contaminated water, dehydration, bad food, poor nutrition – that sort of thing,” said Rebecca.

While at this time of year sea turtles are hardly seen, Diane Wheelock from Michigan, who went snorkeling with her husband, Bob Wheelock, enjoyed the underwater view.

“I loved the colors of the water and the fish,” Diane said. “It was very pleasant. There were some nice, beautiful fish.”

 

If You Go

• The Dry Tortugas National Park is located 70 miles west of Key West and access is only by private boats, charter boats or seaplane. There is public transportation available, which is called the Yankee Freedom II.
• Yankee Freedom II departs from Key West and the voyage takes about 2 hours and 10 minutes to get to the park. The ferry offers continental breakfast with fresh fruit, freshly baked bagels, hot and cold cereal, boiled eggs, cheese, yogurt, juice and coffee. The ferry also offers complimentary lunch buffet, which includes fresh deli meats, cheeses peanut butter and jelly for the kids, a variety types of salads, fresh fruit, chips, cookies and soft drinks. The fee for the entrance of the park is $5, but for more information on rates and travel information visit, http://www.yankeefreedom.com
• When in the park explore the historic Fort Jefferson, snorkel the marine resources, bird watching or just sitting and enjoying ocean views. The Yankee Freedom II provides tours and are about 40 minutes starting at 11 a.m.
• Experience camping and for a detailed information guide visit, http://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/camping.htm

Museum tour highlights foods of Lower East Side

Preserved Stiltsville celebrates Biscayne lifestyle

By ALEXIS KANAREK
School of Communication
University of Miami

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. --- Stiltsville is a group of seven wood stilt houses located on Biscayne Bay, roughly one mile south of Cape Florida at the tip of Key Biscayne.

Seemingly floating above the bay’s shallow seagrass beds, these houses stand on wood or reinforced concrete pilings, generally about 10 feet above the shallow water, which varies from one to three feet deep at low tide.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about Stiltsville's colorful history prepared and narrated by writer Alexis Kanarek.

“It’s the place to be, it’s beautiful, and it’s just a wonderful place,” said Gale Baldwin, chairman of the Stiltsville Trust. “You have 360-degree views and you are in the middle of the water, looking back at the city.”

Now a part of Biscayne National Park, through a set of complicated legal battles, the Stiltsville community and its vibrant history dates back to the 1930s, when the infamous “Crawfish Eddie Walker” built the first house on stilts above submerged state-owned land.

“The conflict was over the fact that the park wanted to tear them down and once they conceded there was no more fight,” said Baldwin. “The purpose was to preserve the houses and we reached a compromise, in which the park owns them and we, the Stiltsville Trust, rent them.”

Stiltsville remains a useful landmark and is currently available to the public by contacting the Stiltsville Trust or Biscayne National Park. It may be used for community meeting spaces, small events, a Biscayne National Park Visitor Center, camera shoots and artists-in-residence program, just to name a few.

“If you have the financial means to do so, you could make arrangements with the Stiltsville Trust – paying all the costs associated with opening and closing the building, running the generator, and getting there – to have access to the buildings for your wedding, party, school group, scout group, or whatever it is,” said Gary Bremen, Biscayne National Park ranger and spokesperson. “All that is done through the Stiltsville Trust and their website.”

On a day without visitors, one of the Stiltsville homes rests in Biscayne Bay (Photos by Alexis Kanarek). Below, two additional views of the houses within Biscayne National Park.

The houses also serve as warning signs for boaters navigating the complicated channels of the area, many of which would run aground and damage the environment without them.

“My friends and I pass by Stiltsville all the time when we are boating in the area,” said Kyla Knyper, a 21-year-old student at the Miami International University of Art and Design. “Even though we have never been in any of the houses, it is a fun and beautiful place to anchor and hang out.”

Although boaters looking for a good time tend to trespass, access to Stiltsville is by permission only and planning for further uses is in the works.

“There is a combination of things going on as far as public use is concerned,” said Baldwin. “Individuals can rent them for a day, for 6 to 8 hours, have a function, a wedding, or whatever people want to do as a group.”

The Stiltsville Trust’s usage guidelines vary for, for-profit corporations and individuals and families.

Daily rental for individuals and families is $1,000, which must be paid at time of reservation, in a check made payable to the Stiltsville Trust, and $50 per person.

There is also a cleaning and damage deposit of $400 that must also be made at the time of reservation, but will be returned if the house incurs no damage. In addition, guests will be charged a $40 fee, per hour with a minimum of six hours, to cover house engineers.

Those renting the homes are required to sign a use agreement and, if one decides to reschedule less than a week before the event, they are subject to a $250 fine.

Although the trust provides general liability insurance once on the property, those using personal boats or watercrafts must present proof of insurance and those chartering must acquire a special permit from Biscayne National Park.

“By in large, the houses have always been weekend retreats and that’s really the biggest function, but there are also photography classes, and some of the high schools in the area host classroom functions,” said Baldwin. “We also cater to girl scouts, boy scouts, Indian princesses and anything of that sort, in addition to groups of people that have kids who have never been out on the water before.”

Stiltsville is also commonly used for commercial purposes as the setting for advertisements and venue for product release parties.

“Right now we are doing a commercial with West Elm, the furniture store, and they are going to film a video or take some still pictures of the furniture in the setting,” said Baldwin. “We also entertain companies like Moet Chandon and BMW when they want to introduce a new product and they want to use Stiltsville as the venue.”

When Moet Chandon introduced their new product, they invited people from all over to this one-of-a-kind location.

“BMW did the same thing,” said Baldwin. “They invited 100 of their top salesmen from around the world to come down and be part of the introduction of their new car model, for this coming year.”

Although the park doesn’t have boat tours specifically for Stiltsville, Island Queen Cruises and HistoryMiami, located in Key Biscayne, offer independent boat tours of the area. The three-hour tours, which depart from Bayside Marketplace in Downtown Miami, focus mainly on Stiltsville, but also include Cape Florida Lighthouse and Key Biscayne.

Throughout the boat tour, which is narrated by known historian Dr. Paul George, passengers are given a detailed explanation of the area’s past, while cruising and enjoying the beautiful bay. In addition, those on board are given the opportunity to take up-close pictures of the houses to take home as souvenirs.

“It’s a neat place,” said Bremen. “At the Biscayne National Park Visitor Center (in Homestead), we have a 28-minute documentary on Stiltsville, called “Stiltsville: Generation of the Flats,” that was done by the local PBS station.”

Stiltsville, this “only-in-Miami kind of thing,” is a one-of-a-kind place and a natural treasure that due to lack of regulation, throughout the years, has been rundown.

At one time, there were as many as 27 of these houses on stilts that were used for weekend retreats and partying, but rarely for full-time living. Accessible only by water, these privately owned shacks quickly became exclusive hangouts for prominent Miami businessmen and the place to be seen when visiting nearby resorts on Miami Beach.

“In the 1930s, during prohibition, they had speakeasies and all kinds of illicit activities going on out there,” said Bremen. “They didn’t really live there and, if you watch this documentary, you’ll see that these were kind of weekend hangouts for folks of some means.”

Stories of illegal booze and gambling, accompanied by flashy women, gave Stiltsville an aura of mystery that still remains today. It was a renegade village where, according to a 1967 publication of Argosy magazine, “weekend residents live by their own laws,” partying day and night with no remorse and an “anything goes” attitude.

“There was the Calvert Club and the Quarterdeck Club, there were dens of ill repute, and all kinds of interesting stuff going on out there,” said Bremen. “All within Miami.”

During the 1950s and 1960s, Stiltsville underwent a transition from shack to lodge. Most of the houses that still stand today, which form part of the Stiltsville Trust, were built during this time. These include the Leshaw House with its unique roof, the Baldwin, Sessions, and Shaw House with their distinctive shapes, and the Ellenburg House with its rich history.

In 1985, building owners faced an unprecedented dilemma, when the boundaries of Biscayne National Park were expanded to include Stiltsville. Due to the complexity of private property on state-owned land, state officials had, for the most part, left owners alone, until then.

However, when the State of Florida decided to deed the bottomland, on which the stilt structures sit, to the park, the National Park Service had fought that private homes did not belong there since 1976; when they requested that the Florida Department of Natural Resources examine a phased withdrawal of the leases owners had previously signed with the state.

“How would you like to have a cabin on the rim of the Grand Canyon, at the top of Mount McKinley, or in the torch of the Statue of Liberty?” said Bremen. “That’s just not what this is about, those are places that belong to everyone, so why should anyone have exclusive, private use of an area that belongs to everyone?”

But, the State Cabinet decided later that year, prior to this transfer of property, that the leases for the remaining 15 houses would be renewed for another 23 years. The National Park Service, in 1983, finally agreed to honor the owners’ leases until they expired in July 1999, when they planned to demolish whatever remained.

In an attempt to save the houses from demolition, a year before the leases were up, owners began to petition the National Register of Historic Places to include Stiltsville on their list of historical properties. Although the State Historic Board conceded the request, the federal agency denied it.

Once again, the park notified homeowners that the houses would be demolished when the lease was ended, at their own expense, which incited substantial civic and political outcry. Many wanted Stiltsville to remain, while others wanted it gone.

“It was a big, long legal fight in which Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was very much involved and had all kinds of interesting proposals,” said Bremen.

A six-month lease extension was granted, in order to resolve the problem, throughout which Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, while working with Save Old Stiltsville Group, proposed substituting Stiltsville with other state-owned lands in a bill she introduced to Congress.

“The problem with that is that you’re creating in-holdings within a national park,” said Bremen. “So then you have private land inside a national park and that’s crazy.”

Once again the lease was extended so that negotiations could continue. With The Miami Herald against them, owners urged Congress to consider the bill and remove the 3,900 acres surrounding Stiltsville from the park.

The U.S. House Resources Committee agreed to pass the bill and swap land with the park in order to save the houses and, with a new superintendent in charge of Biscayne National Park, they agreed to keep the houses and open them to public.

Many were still discontent with this arrangement, while some wanted them removed, homeowners still wanted them for themselves. However, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham approved the park’s ownership and eviction notices were issued.

After further lease and eviction extensions and more legal fights, Biscayne National Park Superintendent Linda Canzanelli proposed the possibility of maintaining the structures and using them as part of the park, making them available to the public. She later formed a group that would tend to those responsibilities outlined in her proposal, including the maintenance of the structures and their regulated public use.

“So it was a long fight and, ultimately, what happened is that the people of the United States now own the buildings at Stiltsville, the former owners of those buildings all sit on the Stiltsville Trust, and they manage those buildings together,” said Bremen. “The buildings are now part of Biscayne National Park, they were not taken away from anyone or given to anyone, they were kind of these entities that existed and it became a very complex situation.”

With only seven structures still standing, after a 150-person party caused the collapse of one and Hurricane Andrew in 1992, took the rest, Stiltsville is now part of a national park and has withstood a series of natural disasters and legal fights.

The houses, which continue as weekend retreats for their owners, are now part of the Stiltsville Trust, a non-profit organization. With 15 trustees, seven of which represent the houses and the remaining eight of which represent the public, the trust is meant to preserve the structures and support both educational and interpretive services.

“What has happened is that we have reached a cooperative agreement with them,” said Baldwin “We signed a ten-year commitment with them and we in turn maintain the properties, while providing some public use on a permit basis.”

After two years of negotiations, both the trust and park were able to reach an agreement on how to manage this joint custody. Although certain details of the arrangement remain unsolved, the consensus now stipulates that the houses are open for public use as well as for the private use of owners.

In addition, similar to the state’s 1965 rule, if the houses are damaged by more than 50 percent, they are to be removed.

“This transition has been very successful,” said Baldwin. “It’s a win-win situation for both the park and the former owners.”

 

If You Go

Stiltsville Trust

Website: http://www.stiltsvilletrust.org

Seven Remaining Houses:

            Baldwin, Sessions house

            Jimmy Ellenburg house

            Bay Chateau

            Hicks house

            Leshaw house

            A-frame house

            Miami Springs Power Boat Club




Biscayne National Park

Address: 9710 SW 328 St., Homestead, Fla. 33033

Phone: 305-230-1100

Website: http://www.nps.gov/bisc/index.htm

 

Island Queen Cruises

Address: 401 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Fla. 33132

Phone: 305-379-5119

Price: $59 per adult and $25 per child

Website: http://www.islandqueencruises.com/stiltsville.htm

Schedule:

Boarding Time: 8:45 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Cruising Time: 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Arrive 30 minutes prior to the cruise departure.

Available on select dates only.

Departs from the middle of Bayside Marketplace, next to Tradewinds Bar and Grill.

Memorial honors contribution of general, president

Stressed coral reefs in park suffer slow demise

By LAURA YEPES
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- Imagine the coral reefs, an underwater city of rock-like structures.

The staghorn coral sticks out in jagged shapes, with branches extending in every direction. A vast brain coral sits at the bottom, its surface covered by connecting twists and turns, while the coral fan looks like giant leaves, standing upright against the force of water. All these species can come in any color of the spectrum, captivating divers for years with their bright reds, blues and purples.

Now imagine them all void of color, bleached, as if someone had poured the cleaning chemical over an expansive portion of their population. Seems tragic, but it is very close to the truth.

Click on the video at the right to see an audio slideshow about the coral reefs of Biscayne National Park narrated by park biologist Amanda Bourque and prepared by writer Laura Yepes.

The reality of the corals is far from what many can imagine. The reefs are dying. And they are disappearing fast.

Matt Patterson, a coral biologist and the network coordinator for the South Florida/ Caribbean network of the National Park Service, estimated that around 60 percent of the delicate species has been destroyed by bleaching, one of the biggest threats to their survival. The process is caused by stress on the corals, coming from polluted and warming waters.

If people were to go out to see the barrier reef at Biscayne National Park or the Dry Tortugas National Park today, he said, they would see colorful specimens and fish living there.

But it is not as healthy as 60 or 50 years ago.

“You could be fooled because, unless you’re a scientist, you could think they’re healthy,” Patterson said.

Part of the reason for this apparent lack of awareness on the wellbeing and survival of the reefs is because it is an underwater ecosystem. The oceans remain a great mystery, and with scientists not being able to manipulate the factors surrounding these species, it is nearly impossible to know exactly what is harming them, and how it can be reversed.

At right, two gray angel fish seen on the coral reef within the park (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service). Below, a pork fish swimming along the coral reefs.

That is not to say that they are completely at a loss for what is going on with the corals. It is more of a confusion among a growing amount of threats. Patterson listed global warming, climate change, overfishing, and destruction through boats as some of the more serious ones, but the list is not exhaustive.

According to research by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the coral cover on many Caribbean reefs, which includes the system in South Florida, has decreased by up to 80 percent over the past three decades. Patterson said that reefs are slow-growing, maybe a few centimeters a year.

So, what has taken hundreds of years to make is being destroyed in just a fraction of the time.

And with that ecosystem disappearing, the chances of other wildlife disappearing increases as well.

More than 200 species of fish sustain themselves on the reef, feeding off of them and making their habitat there. This also helps the corals as well, because some fish, like the parrot fish keep the algae from suffocating the delicate structures, allowing them to continue receiving sunlight. It’s a cycle like any other ecosystem in the world, that affects much more than just the fish, but also the animals that feed on the fish.

“Everything is so dependent,” Patterson said. “It’s scary to think how everything would trickle out.”

One of the potential effects that could have a greater impact on the tourism industry in South Florida, which is known as the fishing capital of the world, is the depletion of big game fish. Both the growing scarcity of resources and overfishing are causing a significant decrease in the size and population of typically great catches.

It has become a conflict of interests, where the tourism industry needs both the preservation of the coral reefs so that people may still visit and to keep fishing largely available.

Park Ranger Gary Bremen said that one of the solutions Biscayne National Park is trying to implement that would balance out the interests is establishing a Marine Reserve Zone, part of the broader, proposed General Management Plan.

This would rope off 10,000 acres of the park’s waters, roughly seven percent of its entire area, where any type of activity besides just observing would be prohibited, including fishing and lobstering.

“Like any national park, we’re supposed to preserve and protect, but also allow for the enjoyment of these places,” Bremen said. “But the courts have said that when it is not possible to have those going on at the same time, if there is a conflict, the conservation takes priority.”

Death by a thousand cuts

 Another way in which the park helps conserve the coral reef population is monitoring the damage inflicted upon them by boat groundings.

According to Amanda Bourque, a Biscayne National Park biologist and part of the damage assessment team, there are approximately 200 reported groundings each year, and 10 percent of those are on the reefs. Her team thinks that there are more accidents that go unreported, though.

At left, coral with a large section missing (Photos courtesy of Amanda Bourque, National Park Service) Below, paint from the bottom of a boat left on a piece of coral.

“The most common cause is human error,” she said. “People don’t pay attention to where they’re going or they never learn to properly navigate a boat.”

The types of damages that this can cause to the corals are geological and biological damage. Geological damages occur when the hard, outside layer of the organism is broken, exposing the soft part to more damage. Biological damage is when other organisms living in the reefs are hurt or killed. When a boat hits these structures, it usually causes both types of damages, Bourque said.

Under the Park System Resource Protection Act, employees of the park have the right to go to the responsible party of any damage and demand restoration. Whenever this happens, the involved parties usually settle for an amount based on what it would cost to restore the area.

That cost depends on how much was spent investigating the extent of the damages, plus what it would take to reverse them.

“The largest cases have reached one million dollars in repairs,” Bourque said.

Most are settled for less than $500,000, though. Boat groundings may not be such a huge factor in the deterioration of reefs as pollution and global warming because an accident will affect a small area. But with constant instances of groundings throughout the year, and adding up over the years, it’s causing what Bourque called “death by a thousand cuts.”

It is important for boat owners to pay attention to signs displayed in the waters warning of areas where they need to be careful, and also to be mindful of the navigational charts that point out appropriate routes for navigation, she added.

Raising awareness

Besides plans to restore marine life and monitoring activity in the park, the park rangers are also raising awareness about the importance of saving the coral reef ecosystem.

Bremen lets visitors know on his tours that while the reefs look beautiful and thriving they are actually in great danger and extremely vulnerable to human activity.

Bourque’s team started offering a course on preventing groundings that started in 2011, and they are expecting more to enroll next year. It might even become a requirement for people who cause damage, much like traffic school to an ordinary driver.

Patterson believes that people should become more civically engaged to call the attention of legislators to the need for action and funding.

He said that he worries that none of the political parties in the recent election mentioned much about the environment, a sign he takes to mean citizens must raise a call to action.

“I wonder if my grandchildren’s grandchildren will see what I saw as a child,” he said.

 

If You Go

• Biscayne National Park, 9700 S.W. 328^th St., Homestead, Fla.
• To get to Convoy Point, where the Dante Fascell Visitor Center is located: From the North: From the Florida Turnpike: Take the Florida Turnpike south, to Exit 6 (Speedway Blvd.). Turn left from exit ramp and continue south to S.W. 328^th Street (North Canal Drive). Turn left and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately five miles, and the entrance is on the left. Or you can also take U.S. 1: Drive south to Homestead. Turn left on SW 328^th Street (North Canal Drive), and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately nine miles and the entrance is on the left. From the South: Traveling on U.S. 1 (Overseas Highway), drive north to Homestead. Turn right on SW 328th Street (North Canal Drive — first light after Florida Turnpike entrance), and continue to the end of the road. The entrance is approximately nine miles on the left.
• Convoy Point is open daily from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Fascell Visitor Center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The water portion of the park is open 24 hours a day. Adams Key, which is only accessible by boat is a day use area only. Prices vary. Trips depend on the number of travelers. To make reservations to go on snorkel trips or glass bottom tours to see the coral reefs go to http://www.BiscayneUnderwater.com

Fort Jefferson has link to Lincoln assassination

By LAURIE CHARLES
School of Communication
University of Miami

DRY TORTUGAS, Fla. — Seventy miles west of Key West, in the middle of the pristine sapphire and emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico, stands a landmark of American history of which many people are unaware.

Fort Jefferson, located on one of the seven islands that make up the Dry Tortugas National Park, was built to control the coastline and to protect the trade route from the Mississippi River onto the Atlantic.

At right, the entrance to Fort Jefferson (Photos by Laurie Charles). Next, Fort Jefferson seen from a distance, is one of the main features of the Dry Tortugas National Park. It was built to control the Mississippi River / Atlantic Ocean trade route.

 “It’s one of the least-visited national parks,” said Rebecca D’Alessil, a tour guide of the Yankee Freedom, the only ferry that makes daily two-hour trips from Key West to the Dry Tortugas.

Although Fort Jefferson, the third-largest seacoast fortification built by the United States, was used as a way to intimidate possible attackers, the fort was used as a Union military prison during the Civil War.

“If you abandoned the Union Army, you were supposed to be sentenced to death,” D’Alessil said.

“But President Lincoln decided to go easy on everybody and he sent the soldiers to a life of hard labor in the Tortugas. We have all these bricks to put together. Who better to do it than the prisoners? That’s where they ended up.”

Although the prisoners helped build the fort, it had already been under construction for nearly 20 years by the time they started arriving on the island.

“A Union army of engineers, some slaves from Key West, and garrisons, soldiers that were stationed here, had started the construction of the fort,” said Kelly Clark, exhibit specialist for the Dry Tortugas National Park.

“It was part of their job. The prisoners just picked it up where it was.”

Most of the prisoners who ended up serving time at Fort Jefferson were sent there for either abandonment of the Union army or disobedience.

The prisoners had to work long hours under the hot and humid South Florida sun to construct the 16 million brick fort which was never completed due to structural issues and the growth of the U.S. Navy.

Of the hundreds of prisoners who served time at the fort, the most notable inmate of Fort Jefferson was Dr. Samuel Mudd, the physician who treated the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth not long after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Mudd claimed that he did not recognize Booth when he came to his farm in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865, asking for medical attention. However, he had had several encounters with Booth prior to the assassination.

At left and next below, Dr. Samuel Mudd’s prison cell is said to have been located here. It has been speculated that Mudd’s dungeon was once located in what now is the administrative office of Fort Jefferson. Guide Rebecca D’Alessil said that when Mudd attempted to escape the island, he was captured and thrown into the dungeon, which was replicated and moved to its current location.

“Unfortunately for him [Mudd], he was a Confederate loyalist and they [Mudd and Booth] were seen before in the same social gatherings,” D’Alessil said.

Mudd’s first encounter with Booth took place less than one year prior to Lincoln’s assassination during a discussion regarding the sale of a horse.

The second meeting occurred about one month later with John Surratt and Louis Weichmann, who would later become key witnesses, when the four convened for drinks in a hotel room rented by Booth.

Gen. August Kautz, one of the members of the Military Commission, was recorded to have said, “Dr. Mudd attracted much interest and his guilt as an active conspirator was not clearly made out. His main guilt was the fact that he failed to deliver them, that is, Booth and Herold [Booth’s accomplice], to their pursuers.”

Yet he was not the only prisoner at Fort Jefferson involved in the assassination of the 16th president of the United States—three other conspirators were also sentenced to life on the fort: Michael O'Laughlen, Samuel Arnold and Edman Spangler.

“The other people were in some way connected with the conspiracy to assassinate the president,” said Clark.

O'Laughlen and Arnold were both accused of plotting Lincoln’s death alongside Booth.

Spangler, another of Booth’s accomplices, worked as a carpenter and sceneshifter at the Ford Theater. The day of the assassination, he prepared the state box where Lincoln would sit; he reportedly removed the partition that separated both boxes.

When Booth arrived at the theater, he called for Spangler to watch over his horse; Spangler quickly brushed off the duty to another Ford

Theater employee who agreed to keep an eye on the mare.

After the shooting took place, another employee chased Booth out of the theater, but Spangler reportedly slapped him in the face and said, “Don’t say which way he went.”

The four men, including Mudd, were charged with conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison.

“The first thing he [Mudd] tried to do was escape on the mail supply ship,” D’Alessil said. “That was an unsuccessful escape attempt because he was a very recognizable person. He was captured and thrown into the dungeon.”

The hexagonal, three-tiered fort centered by lush greenery and enclosed by crystal-clear water appears to be a fairly open space for a prison.

“When people think of a prison on an island they think of high security like Alcatraz. It wasn’t like that here. It was an open setting,” D’Alessil said.

“If they did try to escape, which they did do on a regular basis, how far were they really gonna get? Either Key West or Cuba before they either get lost at sea or collected and brought back to the fort. That happened a lot.”

Apparently Mudd was not the only prisoner who attempted to escape. Myth has it that a prisoner tied to a ball and chain escaped the fort.

For those who were recaptured, D’Alessil said that they were either beaten, hung from a tree by their thumbs, or forced to walk around the fort with a cannon ball.

In the summer of 1867, the island was hit by a yellow fever epidemic. After the fort’s physician died, Mudd took on the role of doctor and treated those affected by the sickness.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about Fort Jefferson and Dr. Samuel Mudd that is narrated by writer Laurie Charles.

O'Laughlen was one of the patients Mudd treated. However, he was not able to recover and died.

Mudd’s leadership role gained him the support of the officers and soldiers of the island in a petition to the federal government. In 1869, President Andrew Johnson signed the petition and pardoned Mudd of his convictions.

After the fort closed in 1875, the rest of the prisoners were released. Clark said that there are no specifics on how they handled the prisoners after the war ended.

Visitor Matt Hyphills was fascinated by the history of Fort Jefferson.

“The fort was really interesting,” said Hyphills, a Chicago resident who was visiting the Dry Tortugas with his wife Sarah. “To hear how they solved the problems of their time and have enough foresee was fascinating.”

Tourist Bob Wheelock from Michigan was intrigued by the structural design of the fort.

“The fact that it could be built how it was during its time and just thinking of the architecture and logistics,” Wheelock said about his favorite aspect of the park.



If You Go

Dry Tortugas National Park

305-242-1100
http://nps.gov/drto
Entrance fee: $5

Although Fort Jefferson, located on Garden Key, is the most popular attraction of the Dry Tortugas, there are other small islands to explore as well.

Hours of Operation

Garden Key is open year-round, 24 hours a day; Fort Jefferson is open from sunrise to sunset.

Loggerhead Key is open year-round from sunrise to sunset, but all of the island’s facilities including Loggerhead Lighthouse are closed to the public.

Bush Key is open Oct. 15 – Jan. 15 from sunrise to sunset. Middle and East Keys are open Oct. 16 – March 31 from sunrise to sunset.
Hospital Key and Long Key are close year-round; visitors should remain 100-feet offshore of all closed islands.

Getting There

Since the Dry Tortugas National Park is located in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, there are only two ways to get to the park—either by boat or by seaplane.

The Yankee Freedom departs daily at 8 a.m. Reservations are required at least two hours prior to departure and can be made online.

The cost is $165 for adults, $155 for students, veterans, and for seniors of at least 62, and $120 for children ages four – 16. The $5 park entrance fee is included in the pricing, as well as on board breakfast and lunch, snorkeling gear, and a 40-minute tour of the fort.

For more information, contact the Yankee Freedom at 800-624-0939 or visit http://yankeefreedom.com.

Key West Sea Plane Adventures offers two options. The half-day excursion, a four-hour experience, costs $265 for adults, $212 for children 12 and under, and free for children under two.

The full-day excursion, and eight hour adventure, costs $465 for adults, $380 for children 12 and under, and free for children under two.
For more information, contact Key West Sea Plane Adventures at 305-293-9300 or visit http://keywestplanecharters.com.

Travelers can also get to the Dry Torutugas via private boat or charter. For more information, visit http://nps.gov/drto/planyouvisit/directions.

Facilities and Food

Since the fort was built in 1846, facilities are limited. There are no restrooms on the island neither are there any cafeterias or restaurants.

Those traveling on board the Yankee Freedom are provided with a continental breakfast and buffet-style sandwich bar for lunch. The Yankee Freedom also sells snacks and beverages, including alcoholic drinks. Travelers are allowed to bring their own food as well.

The Yankee Freedom is equipped with several restrooms.

Those traveling via Key West Sea Plane Adventures are provided with complementary beverages, but must bring their own food.

Activities
There are plenty of activities at the Dry Tortugas including snorkeling, scuba diving, bird watching, fishing, exploring the fort and camping. For more information on what to do at the park, visit http://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/outdooractivities.

Camping (information provided by the National Park Service)

A 10-site, primitive campground is located on Garden Key. Eight individual sites can each accommodate up to three two-person tents (a total of six people), and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Campsites have picnic tables and grills. Campers must bring all supplies, including fresh water, fuel, ice and food. All trash and garbage must be carried out upon departure.

The campground requires a nightly fee of $3 per person. For more information, visit http://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/camping.

Safari Park airboat ride reveals Everglades’ beauty

By RACHEL JANOSEC
School of Communication
University of Miami

After my first trip down Calle Ocho and 17 long miles of construction and traffic on a one-way road in the middle of nowhere, I finally arrived at Everglades Safari Park.

I was very tempted to just pull over at the first giant sign I saw for “airboat rides” but, after passing about four different parks, I approached the sign for the Safari Park.

At right, Everglades Safari Park airboat guide and pilot Lisa Cohn sits high above the water (Photos by Rachel Janosec). Below, an alligator rests on a rock.

The ride there wasn’t too bad, but the parking lot was packed once I got there. I almost couldn’t find a place to park and I had no clue where to go or what I was doing. I ended up traveling alone to the park since my partner was sick, so much of this trip was really planned on a limb.

I paid a very modest $23 for my airboat ride, which to my surprise included an alligator show.

“Lisa, hold the boat we have one more, Lisa!” said the park ranger over his walkie-talkie as the airboat in dock one was slowly floating away.

Next, the park ranger told me to quickly run to dock one because they had one more spot for me and were leaving now!

Lisa Cohn, the airboat guide and pilot of the boat, had to reverse back into the dock and wait for me. The passengers on the boat, including Lisa, didn’t seem thrilled.

Most seemed quite angry that they were held up. But the park rangers and Lisa were very helpful and got me on the first available boat.

The next thing I knew I was out in the middle of the water in the region of the Everglades and I thought to myself, “how did I get here?"

As the airboat was pulling away from the dock, Lisa pointed out two huge alligators sunbathing and hanging out right at the entrance of the park. I think they somehow placed them there for show.

Lisa, the airboat guide, handed out bright orange earplugs to everyone and gave me mine when we were halfway out into the water because I arrived late. I have never been on an airboat tour before, although my father swears he brought me to the Everglades as a child and I just don’t remember.

But, at this point, I had no idea what the earplugs were for.  

I turned to this tall man sitting next to me on the boat and said what are these for, his reply back was simply him just pointing to the bag and giving me thumbs up.  And that’s when I knew I was in for a journey.

I soon realized that the airboat I was on was filled with foreign visitors who didn’t speak English. I was essentially alone in the middle of the Everglades. Everyone else had family with them and could understand each other, but not me. I assumed my fellow passengers were mostly from Europe and spotted one lady at the front of the boat wearing a light pink sweatshirt that said SWEDEN, in big bold writing.

For the entire ride, which was about 30 to 40 minutes, I couldn’t communicate with anyone. Then, of course, it started raining and I was not dressed properly. For about the first half of the ride, no one spoke, I was wet, bored and saw only one animal, which was a bird flying above me. Also, the noise of the airboat was almost deafening and that is when I figured out the purpose of the earplugs. I almost thought I got ripped off and this trip was a waste of my time.

At left, writer Rachel Janosec holds Snappy, the baby crocodile, at the alligator and crocodile show. Next, a view of the Everglades Safari Park while riding the airboat back to the park headquarters.

After our long, wet and boring trip, we finally made it to the middle of the water in the Everglades region. This is when the ride became exciting and interesting. Lisa stopped the boat and gave us a quick history lesson of the area.

The region of the Everglades has been reduced from eight million square feet to one million square feet since 1930 due to progress in South Florida’s economy and development.

Native American Indians, known as the Creek Indians, lived here and called this home for most of their lives, but many had left by 1930. There are about 40 different mammals that live out here on large land masses called hammocks, but I got to see just two. Today, there is about 36 different species of wildlife in the Everglades.

Lisa also informed us that there is major restoration currently happening in the park starting with the road construction along SW 8^th Street on the way to the park. This explained all the traffic and my long commute.

She said that the pure water goes into the Florida aquifers in which Florida residents rely on for drinking water. The water was so murky and filled with plants and mud; I kept thinking to myself I would never want to drink this water.

I also kept thinking about getting stuck out in the middle of the Everglades and how one would survive. Then Lisa brought this topic up.

“The tall grass you see out here surrounding us is called sawgrass. The sawgrass and the pure water can be used for survival if you were stuck out here. Indians did it for a while and you guys could, too. The Indians basically could find and eat whatever they wanted out here. If they wanted fish they would catch that, if they wanted meat for dinner that night they would go out and catch that,” Lisa stated.

One animal we saw, besides the alligators, was a snake, also known as my least favorite animal.

There are 27 species of snakes that call the Everglades home. And thank God we only saw one of them. Four out of the 27 are venomous. One of these venomous snakes is called the Water Moccasin, which is a blackish brown little slimy creature.

The water moccasin can live on water or land and we saw him on land, from far away thankfully. The most venomous snake in the world also lives out here. This snake is called the Coral Snake and is only two feet long and is related to the Cobra family. There is also three species of rattlesnakes in the Everglades, which all shake their tails when they smell intrusion.

Once the rain cleared and the sky was blue again, I realized what a beautiful area I was visiting. The ride back in was what I enjoyed the most. The sky cleared and the wind and sun was hitting my face as Lisa drove the boat back slowly so we could see the alligators sunbathing on the rocks. The ride was actually very peaceful and surreal, and very educational. You are just surrounded by nothing but tall grass, plants, water, sun, breeze and wildlife; all your worries seem to disappear for the time being.

On the way back in to the dock, I saw a beautiful purple and blue bird, only the second bird I saw the whole ride. The Purple Gallinule bird was just sitting on the dock by itself and was very cute and small.

One the way in, Lisa stopped whenever we passed by an alligator. We got up so close to these creatures that is was shocking and they didn’t even flinch. Most were sleeping and even had their eyes closed. Some were by themselves just lying on the rocks in the hot South Florida sun and some were lying on top of each other or in packs.

At right, a purple gallinule bird spotted on the way back in. Next, sunny the snake at the alligator show. And last, the largest Nile crocodile in the park.

Airboats were going out and coming in as we re-entered into our dock area and the park seemed doubly crowded. As we got off the boat, All I know is that this was the most exciting part of the trip. Just as I thought all I was going to see was a bird or two, we came upon all these alligators and everyone on the boat was standing up taking pictures. It was quite the sight to see and quite the experience.

Eddie Reyes, the park ranger and alligator show host, waved us over to the stage for the show.

Eddie fed the alligators and explained how you can tell an alligator apart for a crocodile. A small boy in the audience raised his hand and told us you can tell them apart by the shape of the snout. One is more round than the other and that is the major indicator when trying to tell them apart. Going into this, I had no idea myself and thought they were all just the same.

Everglades Safari Park has some crocodiles in captivity in the park for visitors to see and for the shows. But on the airboat tour, I only saw alligators because crocodiles don’t live in the wild area around the park.  

Eddie brought out a baby alligator named Snappy that was only a few weeks old and let us hold him and take pictures with him, which all the little kids loved. He also brought out a large yellow and white snake named Sunny that we were able to touch, and I got over my fears and gave him a little pet on the back.

Once the show was over we were able to walk around the park and through museums of animals and we could see the gators close up in cages. I told Eddie I was a student and was writing a story for class so he very nicely gave me my own private tour of the park.

“The largest crocodile we have here is from Cuba and is called the cayman crocodile. Some are from Australia and many other places all around the world. The cayman one is vicious and will chase you down and kill you. The crocodiles are more vicious then the alligators,” Eddie explained.

Eddie also answered my question about the large population of people here from Europe who didn’t speak English. He explained that most of them are from Europe and have stopped in Miami during a cruise.

“The cruise ship stops here for the day and lets them explore the Everglades,” he said.

My trip ended with a delicious order of alligator bites from the restaurant at the park. The bites are made up of alligator tail that is marinated for 72 hours, breaded and fried to perfection for only $7. And, yes, it did take a lot of convincing for me to try these things, but they were awesome and a perfect way to conclude my trip to Everglades Safari Park.

 

If You Go

Everglades Safari Park is located at 26700 SW 8^th St., Miami, Fla. 33194.

Directions: Drive west from Miami along SW 8^th Street (also known as U.S. 41 and Tamiami Trail) until you see the sign.

Telephone 305-226-6923, ext. 7.

Activities: Airboat rides, alligator shows, museums and food.

Getting There: Leave early for the park and be aware of the major road construction that is going on.

Restaurant:  Picnic Time Restaurant is popular with visitors and usually has a wait. Keep in mind that there are not many other restaurants close by.

Admission:  $23 for the tour and show and a reduced price of $12 for kids under 13 years old.

Attire: Dress appropriately for occasional rain and wind.

Photos: Bring your camera.

E-mail address: picnictimesafari@hotmail.com.

Ceramic League exhibit highlights Biscayne theme

By MALEANA DAVIS
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- As I was walking out of the art exhibit at Biscayne National Park, I heard a voice.

“Isn’t that neat stuff?” Laurie Householder, a park volunteer sitting behind the information desk at the Dante Fascell Visitor Center, said from across the room to me.  She was still amazed, just as I was, at the clay artwork I just observed.

“I just saw it today for the first time. I haven’t been here; I was like ‘wow!’”

Householder was referring to the Biscayne Clay art exhibit that went on display Sept. 14 and will continue to be shown until Nov. 25.

At right, "Snowy Egrets Fishing on the Bay" by Margie Culberton (Photos by Maleana Davis.) Below, "Vizcaina" by Krisse Pasternack. This piece was inspired by the Red mangrove tree in the park.

I had just seen all the beautiful pieces in the exhibit, which was being shown in the next room at the Visitor Center. Two pieces of artwork were right outside the door of the exhibit. One of the pieces included a clay sculpture of a blue bird titled “Blue Herron” made by Rick DeCamp.

All of the pieces were accompanied with an index card that had the name of the piece, the artist, and a little description or paragraph pertaining to the art.

“I truly enjoyed the entire process of being part of this exhibition. Biscayne National Park is one of my favorite places in South Florida and much of my work evolves from enjoying many years boating, snorkeling and fishing her waters,” said Anne Gorden-Vega, an artist whose work was featured in the exhibit.

I was amazed at all of the beautiful work I was able to see at Biscayne National Park. All of the artists are part of the Ceramic League of Miami and they created some really unique pieces.

“They’re awesome,” Householder said, referring to all of the clay artwork in the exhibit.

The first piece I see in the room is titled “Erosion” by Aimee Perez. On the index card, it says, “’Erosion’ is based on the role mangroves play as the first line of defense against hurricane erosion to our Florida shores.”

Householder said Gary Bremen, the ranger who is in charge of the exhibit, is always looking for people to showcase work that is based on the park.

“He tries to find artists and the artwork has to be about something that’s in the park and he’s had all kinds of artists,” she said.

She goes and grabs a book which features information about different artists who have artwork inspired by the park. She was really fascinated with a man who collects and makes art with the beach trash that he finds.

“The first time I ever came to this park, I came to see that guy’s stuff. It was so cool,” she said.

Actually, all of the clay artwork in the exhibit was really cool. One piece, called Vizcaina by Krisse Pasternack, looks something like a sea goddess with many tentacles, but it was actually inspired by the red mangrove tree.

Gorden-Vega organized the show with Bremen. She also attended the opening reception and said there was a great turnout of guests, as well as artists.

“The attendees were treated to live demonstrations from several of our artists, with one doing a figure sculpture and several others throwing pots on a wheel. I spoke to many park visitors from all over the world who seemed to truly enjoy the demonstrations and exhibit, along with art lovers that enjoy coming out to these events,” she said.

At left, "The Look" by Anne Gorden-Vega. This piece was sold for $700. Below, "Sandpiper at Biscayne National Park" by Diane M. Gonzalez. The price for this piece was $180.

Most of the pieces are available to be bought if any visitor wishes to do so. How visitors go about doing that, Householder said the process was simple enough.

“They all (the artists) belong to the Ceramic League of Miami and I suppose you contact them through that.”

The prices range from $120 all the way up to $1,650. The most expensive piece was the “Red Right Returning” by Martha Larmier, which was not at the exhibit anymore.

“From what I understand there was an unprecedented 3 pieces sold during the opening including one of my own,” said Gorden-Vega.

I was the only one at the Visitor Center looking at the exhibit. I didn’t expect a lot of people to be there in the middle of the week.

“We’re usually busier on the weekends,” Householder said. “During the winter though, we’ll be busy during the week too. A lot of people come and picnic [in the park.]”

There were a couple of people down by the water having a picnic and some more people were walking their dog. There was also someone sitting in his lawn chair reading a book.

“This is the on place in the south end of the country where you can come and look at the water for free, because at the park next door you have to pay,” said Householder.

Yet, just because they have a lot of visitors to the park, does not mean they come up to the Visitor Center.

“Saturdays and Sundays we have a lot of picnickers and a lot of them never even come up here,” Householder said, noting that was a shame few visitors see the exhibits and she said she believed it was mostly because people come to see the water and a lot of them do not even know the Visitor Center is there because it is on the second floor.

“Not all of them speak English. But we try to go out and be like, ‘Hey go up and come look at stuff,’” she continued.

Not only do they have the art exhibit, but the Visitor Center also shows informational movies, including one called the “Spectrum of Life.”

“[The movie] is an overview of the park and that is 11 minutes long,” Householder said.

The Visitor Center also features a museum that displays the four ecosystems of the park with descriptions, pictures, and models.

As I was leaving the visitor center, Householder was talking to a couple about snorkel trips.

“Hope to see you again,” she said as I was heading towards the door. I will definitely go back as I have learned so much about the beautiful Biscayne National Park.

"Don’t Sit Too Long" by Erica Shiraishi. The price for this piece was $400.

If You Go

Address: 9700 SW 328th St., Homestead, Fla. 33033.

Dante Fascell Visitor Center Hours: Open Daily 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Admission is free.

Parking is free and the lot is right outside the Visitor Center.

Phone: 305–230–7275.

On line: http://www.nps.gov/bisc/

Directions: From the North: From the Florida Turnpike: Take the Florida Turnpike south, to Exit 6 which is Speedway Boulevard. Turn left off the exit and continue south to SW 328^th Street. Turn left and continue to the end of the road. It is approximately five miles, and the entrance is on the left.  From the South: Driving on U.S. 1, drive north to Homestead. Turn right on SW 328^th Street and continue to the end of the road. The entrance is approximately nine miles on the left.

Visitors learn Florida history at De Soto Memorial

Looters damage historic wrecks on Biscayne floor

By ELIZABETH DE ARMAS
School of Communication
University of Miami

Editor's note: Click here to read our writer's blog post about her use of social media in the preparation of this story.

 

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Centuries ago, many Spanish ships passed through Florida’s harsh and shallow waters delivering gold, copper, silver and other cargo. But not all of them made it to their final destinations.

Many of the ships ended up sinking because of bad weather conditions and the dangerous currents.

And approximately 252 years later, the ships have remained intact, but not as some would have hoped.

Why? One word: Looters.

This is what a Biscayne National Park shipwreck site looks like after looters have attempted to find souvenirs or valuable items to take home. The marker points to the broken and pried up ship timber that was left after being vandalized by divers (Photos courtesy of Charles Lawson, National Park Service).

Divers and visitors that have found their way down to the wrecks have decided to take pieces of what was left. And, if they don’t find what they want, they begin digging deeper – and still find nothing.

This used to be legal, until Florida passed the Archeological Resources Protection Act, (ARPA), which bans any stealing or vandalizing from these historical memorials in 1979.  

Most, if not all, of the sites have signs reminding individuals that it is prohibited to take anything from the area, but some pretend not to see the sign sand others just don’t care.

Charles Lawson, an archeologist and Cultural Resource manager for Biscayne National Park, said that looting is still taking place, but it is nowhere near as significant as it used to be in previous years.

“It used to be that people put together crews and they would go out there and put down three anchors and stay still and go to town on a shipwreck, but that doesn’t happen anymore,” Lawson said. “Now, we would notice that.”

Law enforcement is now in place to deal with these criminals. But, Lawson said, it is all about “being there at the right place and at the right time.”

If not, there is a chance that divers could still get away with it, but it is quite a difficult task.

“There are only four rangers in the whole park, but if they are [out  on the water] they will catch them,” Lawson said. “And everyone out on the park in boats is watching as well. It is by eyeballs and staff.”

Biscayne National Park houses more than 75 submerged archeological sites – 45 of them are preserved shipwrecks while the rest are isolated individual artifacts and stranding sites.

Allison Goodman, a certified scuba diver for nearly three years, enjoys the experience of shipwreck diving and does not advocate looting.

“Diving in a wreck is a magical experience with marine life teeming around every corner,” Goodman said. “It’s like swimming back in time. I would never think to take anything from a wreck, especially because it would ruin the experience for others.”

The sign that appears in front of the English China site, also known as Circa 1770. At all shipwreck and submerged archeological sites, divers will see this type of sign that reminds them that looting and vandalizing the sites is illegal and punishable by law. Anyone caught can receive up to five years in jail and/or a fine up to $250,000.

This is the mindset Lawson wishes everyone would have.

Archeologists work to preserve history. And the wrecks hold a lot of artifacts that have no monetary value, but plenty of cultural and educational value. Because of this, archeologists’ goal is to make sure sites like the shipwrecks last forever – free from vandalizing and looters.

Carrie Caignet, a historian for Florida Maritime, said that some of the shipwrecks in Biscayne National Park’s marine sanctuary date back to the 1600s and that many of the Spanish would try to salvage items after the ship sank.

“Looting and salvaging was big during this time,” Caignet said. “A lot of the Spanish tried to salvage things but they couldn’t recover everything. When diving equipment began to come around, they would salvage gold and silver not necessarily for the people, but for personal gain.

Unfortunately, there is still one shipwreck site that must constantly be monitored – the English China wreck, also known as Circa 1770. According to Lawson, there are approximately 4,500 broken plates at the site and none of them are intact.

But, visitors and divers don’t know this.

Therefore, they dig until they can’t dig anymore and rip off coral heads in an attempt to find plates that are intact – with no success. Little by little, the china wreck becomes more and more devastated because of this.

According to Lawson, many divers visit the English China wreck because it is a great place to find lobster. But, it is a sensitive site to swim around because of this.

“Most people know where it is, but I am not telling anyone where it is because it sees enough damage as it is,” Lawson said. “Personally I wish people didn’t lobster there, but they can. And they can visit.”

If sites continue to be looted, future generations will have nothing left to discover underwater. And archeologists will have no artifacts to evaluate and study. Ultimately, a piece of our American history will be lost in the hands of people and the world beneath us – under the sea.

“If there is something with some relative significance, people just want to take it,” Caignet said. “They have this idea that it is a Disney World of sorts and people intrinsically feel they have this entitlement.”

Joe Bailey, who asked that his name be changed for the article, is guilty of looting at shipwreck sites, including the English China wreck. He said he didn’t know about the federal laws in place at the time.

“I wanted a souvenir to take back home and it couldn’t be heavy,” Bailey said. “I took some pieces of plates because I thought it was cool. I kind of thought finders keepers, loser weepers.”

This is the sign found at TQ's Wreck, one of the many shipwreck sites found in the park. Signs are placed so that divers can identify each site by name and know where they are. If divers are using a map to locate the sites, a sign at the site confirms that they are at the right place.

Bailey has also dug around wrecks looking for “treasure.” But, he hasn’t in the last two years since he realized that it was wrong. He’s been a certified scuba diver for nearly six years.

“Would I do it again? No,” Bailey said. “I understand the consequences now, but most of all, I understand the importance of keeping them as intact as possible. They’re memorials.”

Lawson says “souvenir hunting” is becoming more popular because divers see something and they become “enticed to look for more.” But, his mission to protect these timeless treasures remains the forefront of his job as an archeologist.

He said it is “basic archeological ethics of the modern era.”

“Most of the sites have been looted to death and there isn’t really a whole lot of artifacts left on any of them, really, but there’s a couple of sites in the park that weren’t looted,” Lawson said. “Those are the ones that I am most concerned with.”

 

If You Go

• For more information visit http://www.nps.gov/bisc/index.htm
• Address: 9700 SW 328 St., Homestead, Fla. 33033.
• Hours: Mondays through Sundays 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• For underwater services, visit http://www.BiscayneUnderWater.com
• The underwater portion of the park is open 24 hours a day, but access is only available by boat.
• Snorkeling, diving, boating, fishing, picnicking, glass bottom boat rides and canoes are available.
• Phone: 305-230-7275.

Facebook aids reporting about wreck looting

Kayaker gains respect for bay’s natural beauty

By ROBERT PURSELL
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- I pulled into the small parking lot at the Dante Fascell Visitor Center on a sunny afternoon here and the first thought I had was that I had to be lost.

It seemed, for lack of better phrasing, to be in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t look like the inlet to a massive national park. The closest large facility to the Visitor Center that I passed on the way was the Homestead-Miami Speedway (which hosts the Homestead 500 each year), and it is several miles to the west.

At right, the view from the entrance to a mangrove channel at Biscayne National Park (Photos by Rob Pursell). Next, the view from inside the mangrove channel at Biscayne National Park.

While I’m sure watching NASCAR can be exhilarating, I had come to report on the kayaking available in Biscayne National Park, not on the finer points of driving cars 200 miles an hour in circles.

It wasn’t until I had started to walk up the ramp to the visitor center building, that Biscayne revealed it’s natural beauty to me. The bay, which was shimmering in the midday sun, stretched out endlessly before me in a delicate spread of bright turquoise deep cobalt hues. It was interspersed with the pristine white hulls of sailboats docked in the marina outside the visitor center.

Beyond the sailboats stretched the pristine Florida coastline made up of coral rocks and mangrove trees that play home to various species of bird and fish, creating a green and white-specked horizon that reached out into the Florida waters.

“That’s the real attraction of Biscayne National Park,” said Darlene Kramer, a volunteer who works at the visitor center, “It’s such a naturally beautiful place. It plays host to so many beautiful species of wildlife and fauna, and we can only see the tip of the iceberg looking out over the bay.”

Biscayne National Park was originally a national monument established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. It later became a national park through legislation in 1980.

It stretches more than 170,000 acres in sunny South Florida and plays home to multiple endangered species such as the West Indian Manatee, the Peregrine Falcon, the American Crocodile, and various sea turtles. It also is home to some of the most beautiful coral reef formations in the world, and dense mangrove forests.

“That’s what most people don’t understand,” said Theresa Borrero, who rents out kayaks and runs snorkel tours out of the Visitor Center store.

“The true beauty of Biscayne lies underneath the surface. A total of 95 percent of the park lies underwater, we have the largest marine ecosystem of any national park in America, and play host to the third largest coral reef in the world. To really understand its beauty, you need to get out into the water.”

Armed with this knowledge, I forked over $16 to rent a sea kayak for the day, dragged my neon yellow vessel past the families having picnics on the lawns of the Fascell Visitor Center, and set off into the crystal waters of Biscayne Bay.

The first thing that I noticed when kayaking through the bay, is how incredibly shallow the water is on the paddle out. In fact, shallow may be an understatement; the water never raises much above ankle level.

But this shallow water offers an immaculate view of the coral rock and sea grass that seem to glow in the Floridian sun. Tiny minnows and glistening fish dart in and out of the green sea grass with each stroke of the kayak paddle.

As I continued my journey out into the bay, I stayed close to the shoreline as it snaked out away from the visitor center. Swallows perch on the white stalks of overhanging mangroves, allowing kayakers to get just close enough to get a good view of their striking features before flapping away.

Before long, I saw a small inlet into the dense thickets of mangroves that make up the shoreline and cut into it. Upon entering, I was greeted with a labyrinth of lush emerald vegetation that rose just past my sightline on each side.

At right, the rock outcroppings that are home to many species of bird at Biscayne National Park.

The bright sun was only broken by the passing shadow of the circling falcons and for a moment, sitting in the silence of the mangrove maze, time seemed to slow. Paddling back out into the bay, I came upon two rock outcroppings draped in brown pelicans, white ibis, blue-crowned herons and cream-colored coral rocks. Immediately after passing the two rock outcroppings, the shallow sea floor drops off into a sea of deep turquoise.

These warm waters play home to scores of lazy manatees that sunbathe and often float up next to kayakers, and flocks of pelicans that dive into the blue waters to find food.

		At left, the open bay near the Dante Fascell Visitor Center at Biscayne National Park. Below left, a brown pelican in flight over the water at Biscayne National Park.

Upon entering the deeper water, my kayak began to bob with the flow of the ocean water and I allowed my plastic vessel to float weightlessly in the water as I looked out over the bay.

The sun had begun to set behind the mangroves, casting a golden dust over the clear waters of the bay. I paddled back, pulled my kayak onto shore, and began to drive away from the Fascell Visitor Center.

The day which had started out with me doubting whether or not I had come to the right place, had ended in a spectacular fashion, and instilled in me an immense respect for the natural beauty of Biscayne National Park.

 

If You Go

• The Dante Fascell Visitor Center is located at 9700 SW 328^th St. in Homestead, Fla. 33033
• Parking and admission at the park are free.
• The easiest way to drive to the park is to take the Speedway exit (exit 6) off of State Route 821.
• The Dante Fascell Visitor Center is open everyday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m..
• Kayaks are available for rental within the visitor center for $16, and rentals are available each day until 3:30 p.m.

 

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Childhood dream comes true for Biscayne ranger

By SASHA BLANEY
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. ---As a kid, just about everyone has a dream to be something larger than life. As kids begin to grow up, the dream they once had slips away and slowly a new one forms.

That is not the case for Gary Bremen.

Biscayne National Park Ranger Gary Bremen speaks to a journalism class at the University of Miami (Staff photo).

 

As an interpretive park ranger at Biscayne National Park, Bremen feels that his childhood dream has come true. Since age seven, Bremen knew he wanted to work for at a national park and ever since has been working to make the dream come true.

“I’ve worked at seven or eight different parks, but Biscayne is in the backyard of the place I grew up, so it is particularly special to me,” Bremen said.

 

At left, Bremen meets with a UM student after one of his classroom sessions (Staff photo). Next, Boca Chita Island in Biscayne National Park from the top of the light house (Photo by Sasha Blaney). Last, Boca Chita Island, with the horizon and ocean in the distance (Photo by Sasha Blaney).

Since beginning work at the park in 1989, Bremen has helped implement programs like Family Fun Fest and the Community Artist Program.

Family Fun Fest is a free public program that takes place on the second Sunday of every month between December and April. Each month one of the parks resources are highlighted at five stations around the Visitor Center. Those who complete all five stations receive a specially designed button to commemorate the day.

“Gary is one of the most imaginative and dynamic individuals with whom I've had the pleasure of working. Not only does Gary possess a mastery of the natural world and how it functions, Biscayne Bay in particular, but Gary is able to evoke an emotional and intellectual response in park visitors of all ages through the playful and creative educational activities he's developed,” said Pamela Sweeney, manager of Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves, an office that is helping support Family Fun Fest.

Bremen has come up with many ideas to inspire visitors to want to know more about the park. He focuses on everyone of all ages to explore the park.

“I also present a program called "Gifts from the Sea" that has been presented to thousands of people over the years. This is a particular favorite of mine and often used as an example of an outstanding interpretive program,” said Bremen.

Don Finefrock, executive director of South Florida National Parks Trust, a non-profit that works closely with Biscayne national park tributes the strong partnership to Bremen.

“Gary Bremen is very talented, he is the creative energy behind Biscayne National Park,” Finefrock said, “It’s hard because a Biscayne is overshadowed by the Everglades and some people don’t know much about Biscayne.”

Bremen enjoys turning people onto Biscayne, “There’s really cool stuff that happens here. From amazing wildlife to evidence of natural processes to an intensely interest human story.”

Pamela Sweeney adds, “Reactions from your visitors that cause them to think about and eventually care about the resource they're learning about is the essence of environmental interpretation and something that all of us try to do as well as Gary can. “

There must be something of a teacher lurking within Bremen. Not only does he lead interpretive tours on a regular basis at the park, he guest lectures at his alma mater, the University of Miami, from time to time.

Bremen has met with journalism and mass communication students in the School of Communication at UM on several occasions, discussing Biscayne Bay, the park, and even the park service.

“He’s a natural teacher,” said Dr. Bruce Garrison, a journalism professor who has invited Bremen to his classes at UM. “He is patient and thorough. He knows how to explain the complex natural systems of the bay in a meaningful and interesting manner. He is passionate about his work, Biscayne Bay and the park itself. He gives tirelessly over and over.”

Yes, Bremen is much more than just a park ranger. He coordinates the art exhibit in Biscayne National Park, guides interpretive park tours, runs the park’s website, handles news media contacts on behalf of the park, occasionally wears a teacher’s hat and even finds time to update all of the park’s social media pages on Facebook and Twitter.

“I'd say he loves what he does as much as he is good at what he does--and it shows in the world-class programs he creates and executes,” said Pamela Sweeney.

He’s a man of all trades.

Seafood Depot offers history, regional cuisine

By JOSEPH CERVONE
School of Communication
University of Miami

EVERGLADES CITY, Fla. -- While many tourists flock to Everglades National Park each year in order to observe the park’s beauty and wildlife, places like Everglades City still remain where wildlife is a delicacy for tourists and locals alike.

Although Everglades City, the western entrance to the park, only boasts a population of about 500 residents, the few two-way streets that do intersect the town are the location of several local eateries offering an assortment of seafood that ranges from the common favorites of stone crabs, shrimp and oysters all the way to the exotic Everglades specials such as gator nuggets, frog legs and Florida gator tail.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about the Everglades Seafood Depot and its colorful history narrated and prepared by writer Joe Cervone.

When it comes to longevity, stature and overall quality of food, few, if any, Everglades restaurants can match the Everglades Seafood Depot Restaurant, which has been a popular dining destination for the quaint town all the way back to the 1960s.

With the Everglades National Park Gulf Coast Visitor Center just a short distance from the restaurant, it is a fitting place to begin, or end, a day trip to the park. What makes the depot so unique and curious for tourists is that before housing a restaurant, the large Spanish style stucco building was used as a train station owned by the Atlantic Coast Line when it was first built in 1928.

“The train station was built here in the 1920s while Everglades Airport wasn’t built until the 1960s,” said Billy Potter, owner of the Everglades Seafood Depot with his wife Crystal. “The train came here to Everglades City up until the late 1950s, since there were no roads it was the best way to get supplies here.”

Towards the end of the 1950s, the ACL decided to discontinue its rail service and the depot was sold privately amongst a few buyers. At one point, the depot was transferred to the University of Miami with the aspiration of one day being used as a laboratory for marine science. The depot also served as the setting of a railroad station in the 1958 film “Winds Across the Everglades.”

The Everglades Seafood Depot is housed in a large Spanish style stucco building that previously served as a train depot for the Atlantic Coastal Line during the 1920s (Photos by Joe Cervone).

From the 1960s onward, the former train station has served as a local restaurant, although transferring from several owners over the years. Potter, who has owned and operated the depot since 1997, acquired it from Everglades Mayor Sammy Hamilton, who is also the cousin of his wife.

Since that time Potter, has marketed his restaurant both to tourists and to South Floridians alike, who venture down to Everglades City looking to satisfy their appetite for the local wildlife and seafood.

“Probably between 80 and 90 percent of the customers that come to the depot are tourists,” said Potter. “People come to Everglades National Park and they like to do the boat tours when they come, but after that they come and eat here.”

Offering a large menu of finger foods, sandwiches, seafood and pasta dishes, the depot has a wide variety of courses. But what really stands out on the depot’s menu is their specials found specifically in the Everglades, highlighted by their appetizer, “The Taste of the Everglades,” a platter of gator, frog legs and conch fritters.

“We have gator on our menu year round,” said Potter. “It comes from Louisiana and also from alligator farms throughout Florida too.”

Many of the foods served off of Potter’s menu also come right from within Everglades City from the local fishermen and alligator trappers.

At left, the restaurant offers indoor seating, a banquet hall and an outdoor seating patio that overlooks the frontage of Lake Placid. Below, wildlife such as pelicans roam just a few yards from the tables of patrons.

“All that I can get I get from locals, other times I get my food from our food distributors,” said Potter. “There are quite a few gators we have here, they’re all around us.”

For the depot and other local eateries the busiest time of their year begins right after the holiday seasons in January and through May, when the Everglades experiences an increase in visitors.

“People come down from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Marathon and Naples, they all come in for the weekend to sport fish and to eat,” said Potter. “We’re on the main drag of Everglades City so you have to pass by us, but still most tourists know ahead of time where they’re coming to since there’s only a few places to eat.”

Potter’s dedication to keeping the restaurant alive long after train routes stopped heading to Everglades City, has allowed the former Atlantic Coast Line train depot to continue welcoming and serving visitors in search of the seafood and wildlife that Everglades National Park has to offer. 


If You Go

Everglades Seafood Depot Restaurant
102 Collier Ave.
Everglades City, Fla. 34139

Open daily
10:30 a.m. - 9 p.m.
239-695-0075

Price Range: appetizers $7 to $16, sandwiches $4 to $9, lunch entrees $8 to $12, dinner entrees $12 to $28, seafood entrees $14 to $20, all you can eat fried chicken buffet $8, all you can eat taco bar $9 (Tuesday), all you can eat seafood (Thursdays starting in October)

Credit Cards: All major credit cards accepted.

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When in season, fisherman seek elusive stone crabs

By JOSEPH CERVONE
School of Communication
University of Miami

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --- For most Floridians, mid-October signifies the approaching end of the dreaded hurricane season.

But for the state's fishermen, it marks the beginning of their busy season as they embark on eight months of catching one of the state's most popular delicacies: stone crabs.

Weeks before the tables of local crab shacks become filled with hungry customers, bodies of water across the state become filled with fishermen and their boats.

Each year, on Oct. 15, commercial and recreational crabbers alike drop their traps for the first of many times in the eight-month season. In South Florida, the waters of Biscayne National Park are no exception.

Stone crabbing season begins each year on Oct. 15 and ends on May 15 for both recreational and commercial fishermen. This past 2010-11 season nearly three million pounds of stone crabs were produced (Photo courtesy of Don Demaria).

“We get around half a dozen commercial boats regularly on the waters… and, in addition, divers and fishers with traps,” said Evan Pickford, a law enforcement ranger at Biscayne National Park.

Though Pickford acknowledged the park itself has never attempted to determine the number of stone crabs in its waters, it can be assumed there is no shortage surrounding the state. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimated nearly three million pounds of stone crab claws were produced during the 2010-11 harvest.

Last season was also financially successful for fishermen.

Amanda Nalley, public information officer for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, reported the wholesale value of last season’s take was “about $25 million, up almost $5.6 million from 2009-10.”

The large amount of money generated from stone crabs each year isn’t only from commercial fishermen. According to Nalley, a significant number of stone crabs caught each year are for recreational purposes. While the end product is the same, the rules vary between those who fish commercially and those fishing as a recreation.

Recreational crabbers can begin their season the same day as commercial crabbers, but are not allowed to set more than five traps at a time. They can also only gather up to one gallon of claws. In contrast, commercial fishermen can set an unlimited number of traps.

Divers at Biscayne National Park. In addition to using traps, some stone crabs are taken by divers (Photo courtesy of Biscayne National Park).

Whether working for recreational purposes or planning to sell the crabs commercially, Nalley explained there are some rules every crabber must abide by. Stone crabs must be caught during daylight hours and not taken in navigational waters. All traps must indicate personal identification. In both cases, specific certification for crabbing is required through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 

The number of these certificates for trapping is high, but they are getting harder to come by. 

“Currently, there are more than one million certificates out there,” Nalley explained. “A new crabber must purchase these from others who already have them. FFWCC no longer gives them out.” 

In recent years, FFWCC has begun to retire some traps only furthering the barriers to stone crabbing for prospective commercial fishermen.

When it comes to crab protection, all fishermen, commercial and recreational alike, are held to the same standard. According to Nalley, it is unlawful to use any device for the taking of stone crabs that can puncture, crush or injure the crab body, such as spears, grains, grabs, hooks or similar devices.

One common misconception involving the harvesting of stone crabs is the assumption that fishermen must only remove one, but not both, claws.

“Many people believe you can only take one, but that isn’t true. It is better though for the stone crab if only one claw is harvested because that leaves them with a claw to eat and defend themselves with.” Nalley explained. “The more they can eat, the faster their missing claw will grow back. It takes about three years for a regenerated claw to reach the harvestable size.”

The average life span for a stone crab remains seven years for males and eight years for females.

The rationale behind not eating the entire stone crab is simple: there is very little meat found on the crab’s actual body and by only breaking off the claw and releasing the crab alive, it has the potential to re-grow its claw and be caught again.

In order to help enforce fishing regulations and offer clarification to these rules, Biscayne National Park offers a free, once-a-month, fisheries awareness class.

“Some people go to learn more about fishing at our park, but the majority of the people who attend are those issued fines for violating state fishing regulations,” said Pickford.

Similar to traffic school, individuals who received fishing citations may, at the discretion of ticketing law enforcement agent, take the course in order to have fines reduced or even waived. Overall, the class covers the importance of fishing regulations, how to interpret these rules, how to identify one’s catch, how to properly catch and release and offers new tips and techniques.

In addition, park officers are continually working to address stone crab issues, particularly one of their biggest concerns: trap theft.

“Trap robbing is a big concern for commercial fishermen as it causes loss in total annual harvest and profit,” said Katie Purcell, law enforcement spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “The Department of Law Enforcement has been setting up special details to target those people that knowingly molest traps, as they are stealing from the State of Florida and all of the legal commercial and recreational harvesters.”

By working at night, during the day in highly trafficked fishing areas, and additionally, working in civilian clothing, officers hope to stop these thefts from continuing.

Through greater education and stronger law enforcement, park services hope to further improve commercialization while continue preserving the conservation of stone crabs.


If You Go:

Obtaining a recreational fishing license:
A Florida saltwater recreational fishing license is required to harvest stone crabs under the recreational fishing regulations.  These can cost anywhere from a $17 one year saltwater only license to a $301.50 lifetime saltwater fishing license. A popular choice is the $32.50 saltwater and freshwater combination license. It lasts a year and is for Florida residents only. Visit http://myfwc.com/license/recreational/saltwater-fishing/ for a chart of costs including out of state.

Equipment regulations:

• There are two main methods available to catch a stone crab dinner: you can put out your own traps or dive for them.
• According to Florida law, any angler may use up to five stone crab traps.
• Recreational traps must meet the following criteria:
• Buoys must have a legible "R" at least two inches high, permanently affixed to them.
• Traps must have the harvester's name and address affixed to them in legible letter and must be retrieved manually (no motorized trap pullers, those are for commercial use only)
• Traps must not be placed in navigational channels or waterways.
• Each trap must have a degradable wooden panel equal to the size of the entry hole on the top of the trap.
• Plastic and wire traps already rigged can be found at most bait and tackle shops.

When to fish:

• Stone crab fishing season lasts from October 15th – May 15th for both recreational and commercial fishermen.
• Retrieving traps and diving may only occur during daylight hours.

Removing stone crab claw:

• Claws must be a minimum length of 2 3/4-inches (removed at elbow or first joint and measured from tip of moving part of claw to joint)

Biscayne National Park Fisheries Awareness Class

• Meets once per month, with odd-numbered month classes offered in English and even-numbered month classes offered in Spanish.
• Date that class meets varies each month. To see schedule of upcoming classes please visit: http://www.nps.gov/bisc/planyourvisit/fisheries-awareness-class.htm
• Wednesday courses: 6 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
• Saturday courses: 9 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.
• The course is offered at two different locations (specified by date): Suniland Park, Pinecrest, 12855 S. Dixie Hwy., Miami, Fla. 33156; and Biscayne National Park, Discovery Room, on the lower level of the Visitor Center, 9700 SW 328th St., Homestead, Fla. 33033.
• For more information of to enroll, please contact Cristalis Capielo, Fisheries Education Program Coordinator, 305-230-1144 ext. 036.

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Trust provides support for South Florida parks

By SASHA BLANEY
School of Communication
University of Miami

Most people think that national parks are completely dependent on federal funding.

Little do they know that the government only provides budget monies for basic operations of the parks and that there are so many more costs that are not covered.

To keep the parks program running smoothly, a little outside help is needed.

The result is a national network of organizations that form a major support system for the nation’s nearly 400 parks and other preserved and protected areas.

This is where the South Florida National Parks Trust enters the picture.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about the South Florida National Parks Trust prepared by writer Sasha Blaney.

The trust is an organization that has been around since 2002 and became fully independent in 2008.

The South Florida National Parks Trust, SFNPT for short, focuses on promoting philanthropy and local involvement. It is the primary fundraising contributor to South Florida’s three national parks and preserve.

SFNPT chose to focus its efforts in five specific areas:

• environmental education
• resource protection
• visitor services
• volunteer activities
• community outreach

Clearly its efforts have paid off; since being established, the SFNPT has completed numerous projects for a combined investment of more than $3 million.

“We want to create an opportunity to learn,” said Executive Director Don Finefrock, “and to connect people to the parks.”

Biscayne National Park, as seen from a kayak out on the bay (Photos by Sasha Blaney).

Bob DeGross, chief of Interpretation and Public Affairs at Big Cypress National Preserve, said the preserve is a testament to the educational programs that SFNPT has supported.

“SFNPT helps fund the educational programs and make sure that they are well staffed programs,” said DeGross, “Having partners is instrumental and imperative for national parks to make a connection with communities, they help provide a way to have local people involved rather than just visit.”

Finefrock has been with SFNPT for seven years after making a career change after 20 years of being a journalist. 

“The board took a chance on me, but I had strong passion for the parks. I loved them and I used them,” said Finefrock, who was a reporter for The Miami Herald for 10 years. “I also had skills in the communication field and a lot of contacts in the area.”

Finefrock mentioned that it was a steep learning curve, but that he has learned a lot. He noted that a lot of SFNPT’s success was not just from him, but also from the strength of the board members and supportive parks superintendents.

Biscayne National Park has many mangroves that surround the tiny islands within the park.

Gary Bremen, a Biscayne National Park spokesperson and interpretive ranger who has worked with Finefrock, listed a number of projects that they have successfully collaborated on including the “National Park Service Birthday Party” and the Community Artist Program.

“The 'National Park Service Birthday Party' event we have is for kids. The Community Artist Program is where SFNPT helps to secure grant money for printing, postage, food for receptions and supplies needed to make art exhibits happen. SFNPT also supports the salaries of rangers who work in the park's environmental education program,” Bremen explained.

“These are just a few of the projects that I am personally aware of, but can honestly say that without the trust, many visitor services and programs would be nonexistent,” said Bremen.

At left, one of the many boardwalk paths through the Everglades. This one, at Royal Palm, is one of the most- visited sites in the park. Below, Everglades National Park offers wide views of sawgrass.

SFNPT makes it a point to partner with all four parks in the region. The group takes pride in the way that they are able to help each park and not just focus on one. When rangers are sent to reach out to the community on behalf of SFNPT, they speak for all four parks and are expected to represent each of them equally.

Finefrock understands that South Florida is very urban and he hopes to educate the community about the parks so a connection can be made. 

His current student intern is a clear product of the impact SFNPT can have. University of Miami public relations major Stephanie Beyl spoke about the organizations education programs and how it is motivating to see students learn about the environment at such a young age.

“These parks need to be protected now so they can be here for the next generation,” said Beyl. “It is necessary to keep these unique parks around.”

To learn more about any of Florida’s national parks or about SFNPT please visit their website below. SFNPT also puts out a seasonal newsletter with stories about their projects. You can receive the newsletter by signing up for it on southfloridaparks.org/newsletter.


South Florida National Parks Trust

SFNPT can be located at:
1390 S. Dixie Hwy., #2203
Coral Gables, Fla. 33146

SFNPT can be reached by:

• Telephone: 305.665.4769
• E-mail: info@southfloridaparks.org
• Or visit: http://www.southfloridaparks.org

Some events that the organization participates in:

Biscayne National Park:

•     Education Program
•     Volunteer Program
•     Biscayne BioBlitz event

Everglades National Park

• Education Program
• Lichen Project
• Nike Missile Base tours

Big Cypress National Preserve

• Education Program
• March for Parks Event

Dry Tortugas National Park

• Key West Visitor Center
• Curriculum Guide

Other Projects:

• Wayside Exhibits in Everglades National Park
• Underwater Marine Heritage Trail
• Saving the Civil War era cannons at Fort Jefferson
• Underwater Camera at Shark Valley
• Sea Turtle Protection Program
• Recruiting Volunteers
• Wildlife Viewing Scopes at Flamingo
• Junior Ranger Program

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Hidden Valley— Gem at the center of Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree offers hikers unique landscapes to view

Planning key to survival when visiting desert areas

Barker Dam: Path through Joshua Tree history

Palm oases add color to desert of Joshua Tree

Friendly people make Teton lake hike memorable

Horseback riders explore beauty of Joshua Tree

Hikers carve initials, damage park for all of us

Park’s trails appeal to bicyclists of all skill levels

A bit of etiquette at 38,000 feet goes a long way

How to travel light in era of bag size limits, fees

Search and rescue teams offer help when needed

Rugged Tetons offer much for photographers

Autumn is magical in Grand Teton mountains

Visitors drawn to Joshua Tree for stargazing