Everglades News

The small pond six miles deep in Everglades National Park suddenly began bubbling like a pot aboil -- a telltale sign of air-slurping walking catfish. 

A recent bill passed in the U.S. Senate authorizes the National Park Service to acquire 590 acres of mangrove habitat and 10 acres of land in Tarpon Basin. The mangrove acreages sit mostly on two peninsulas that surround and form the two sides of Tarpon Basin, and abut the Intracoastal Waterway (Grouper and Dusenbury creeks). 

Florida Bay has taken a beating from boaters over the decades, say new studies by Everglades National Park staff.

 Fuel services have resumed at the Flamingo area of Everglades National Park, the National Park Service announced. 

The National Park Service has opened the historic Nike Hercules Missile Base HM-69 in Everglades National Park to the public for the first time since it was turned over to the park in 1979. 

Retired Bell South training manager Dick Johnson stood in a remote wilderness campsite earlier this week , aiming the nozzle of a pressure washer at a wooden platform for a tent. A few yards away, his wife, Joyce, was scrubbing picnic tables, preparing for busloads of area elementary school students who soon will begin arriving for two-night stays through the winter.

Udutu (www.udutu.com), a provider of web-based e-learning software and services, today announced that the National ParksConservation Association (NPCA), a non-partisan organization dedicated toprotecting and enhancing the National Park System, has chosen Udutu'sweb-based course authoring tools and Learning Management System (LMS) asthe platform for its new Eco-Mariner boater education program.

A two- to three-month-old female panther was struck by a vehicle and killed in Everglades National Park on Monday night.

The snake hunter shakes his head as he crouches over a sandy trail that pushes through Collier-Seminole State Park. Hoping to spy subtle signs of his slithering prey, Paul Andreadis instead finds only pebble-sized pockmarks left by raindrops overnight and maybe tracks left by a deer, probably that morning.

Earlier this year, a U.S. Geological Survey report found that climate conditions favored the possible spread of Burmese pythons from Florida to as many as 32 states as the planet warms. But a new study takes the opposite view: The voracious predators won't get out of the Everglades.

Environmentalists have been issuing dire warnings about the deterioration of the Florida Everglades for years, saying these wetlands have to be restored in order to revive fragile ecosystems and increase scarce fresh water supplies. Over half of the Everglades are gone, irreversibly converted to urban or agricultural development. But this week, in an attempt to save what's left, the state of Florida announced a plan to buy nearly 200,000 acres of former wetlands from a sugar cane producer. Advocates say the plan is the largest restoration project in American history.

A 7,000 acres fire, most likely human-caused, in Everglades National Park will be fully suppressed, according to park superintendent Dan Kimball, because it is burning close to two populations of a federally listed endangered species, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow."Our highest priority, as always, is firefighter and public safety, but we need to ensure that the habitat of the endangered seaside sparrow is protected," said Kimball.

Murray sixth-grader Peter Rosen has been selected out of hundreds of competitors for his essay addressing a new direction to preserve the environment.The National Park Foundation challenged kids nationwide with the following question: "What can you do now to turn over a new leaf for the environment and help preserve our national parks?"

As if killer bees and kudzu weren't enough, the southern United States may soon have another invasive species to contend with — giant Burmese pythons capable of swallowing deer and alligators whole.Approximately 30,000 of the big snakes, which can reach 30 feet and 200 pounds, already live wild in Florida's Everglades, thanks to thick-headed pet owners who've released them into the swamps when they've grown too large to keep at home.

Toyota today announced a contribution of more than $1 million dollars and five vehicles to Everglades National Park to support environmental education programs. The donation will benefit more than 10,000 students annually via a number of initiatives including day program field trips and camping trips for grade school students; the K-12 Miccosukee Indian School program; in-park teacher workshops for day and camping programs; in-park special programs for other school groups and student organizations; and in-school teacher workshops.