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Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River .
The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee.
Apr 21, 2024 · April 21, 2024. • 12 min read. Fast Facts. Location: Florida. Established: December 6, 1947. Size: 1,542,526 acres. Annual visitors: 1 million. Visitors centers: Everglades has four: Ernest F....
- Overview
- Natural environment
- Early inhabitants
The Everglades is a subtropical marsh region up to 50 miles (80 km) wide but less than 1 foot (0.3 meter) deep. The Everglades occupies a shallow limestone-floored basin and much of it is covered with saw grass, which grows to a height of 4 to 10 feet (1.2 to 3 meters). It covers more than 4,300 square miles (11,100 square km) of southern Florida, U.S.
What type of climate does the Everglades have?
The Everglades has a tropical to subtropical climate, which is influenced strongly by the southeast trade winds. The monthly mean temperatures range from 63 °F (17 °C) to 82 °F (28 °C) with rare winter frosts. Rainfall averages 40 to 65 inches (1,000 to 1,650 mm) annually, most coming between May and October.
What birds are found in the Everglades?
The Everglades is home to more than 350 bird species, including wading birds, shore and water birds, birds of prey, and a wide variety of songbirds.
Are there endangered species in the Everglades?
The Everglades occupies a shallow limestone-floored basin that slopes imperceptibly southward at about 2.4 inches per mile (about 4 cm per km). Much of it is covered with saw grass (a sedge, the edges of which are covered with minute sharp teeth), which grows to a height of 4 to 10 feet (1.2 to 3 metres). Open water is sometimes found. Slight changes in the elevation of the land and the water’s salt content create different habitats. The Florida Bay estuary is covered with sea grass and serves as a nursery for fish. Mangroves also serve as nurseries and as feeding grounds for wading birds in tidal areas where fresh and salt water combine. Coastal prairie regions support salt-tolerant succulents and cordgrass. Hardwood hammocks consist of thick stands of tropical (mahogany, cocoplum, and strangler fig) and temperate (saw palmetto, live oak, and red maple) trees growing on slight hills, creating islands in the saw-grass marsh and sloughs; domes of cypress or willow can also be found. Pinelands, dominated by slash pine, occupy dry ridges.
The organic soils, formed from the decay of lush vegetation, range from discontinuous shallow patches to accumulations of peat and muck 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 metres) thick near Lake Okeechobee. The best soils are deep mucks found in a narrow zone along the lakeshore, where a dense tangle of custard apple, or pond apple, once grew.
The climate of the Everglades is tropical to subtropical and is influenced strongly by the southeast trade winds. Monthly mean temperatures range from 63 °F (17 °C) to 82 °F (28 °C), though winter frosts occur on rare occasions. Rainfall averages 40 to 65 inches (1,000 to 1,650 mm) annually, with most coming between May and October. During that period the land is nearly covered with a sheet of water. In the dry season (December–April), however, water levels drop and leave it dotted with small pools.
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The marsh provides habitat for more than 350 bird species. There are wading birds such as egrets, herons, roseate spoonbills, and ibis; shore and water birds such as terns, plovers, rails, and sandpipers; birds of prey including owls, hawks, and osprey; and a wide variety of songbirds. Several game fish species make their homes there. The Everglades is known for its population of alligators; bobcats, white-tailed deer, river otters, gray foxes, and many types of snakes, lizards, and turtles also live there. The area provides habitat for endangered species such as the manatee, Florida panther, wood stork, American crocodile, and several species of sea turtle. The population of wading birds in the Everglades has fallen drastically since the mid-20th century.
To the Native Americans of the region, the Everglades was known as Pa-Hay-Okee (“Grassy Water”). Its vast areas of open saw grass were used as passage for dugout canoes and as hunting and fishing territory. Although there was little settlement within the Everglades, mounds remain to indicate occupancy. The nearby coastal regions were inhabited by Calusa and Tequesta Indians when European explorers first arrived in the 16th century. Contact with Europeans was marked by warfare, disease, and other depredations, and both these groups were largely gone from the region by the late 1700s. Creek peoples then began to move into the area and became known as Seminoles.
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The Seminoles found sanctuary in the swamps and marshes because the white settlers did not covet the glades at the time. They developed the “chickee,” a dwelling without walls, made of a log framework with a thatched roof over a raised platform, that assured maximum ventilation. They planted corn (maize), beans, melons, and squash on patches of higher ground and gathered nuts, roots, and palmetto berries. The bulbous roots of the coontie plant were the source of a starchy flour, and hunting and fishing provided much of their sustenance. Most were forced out during the Second Seminole War (1835–42). The Miccosukee tribe (formerly part of the Seminole tribe) continued to make their home in the Everglades into the 21st century.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Sep 11, 2022 · The Florida Everglades in south Florida is one of the world’s most unique and fragile ecosystems. Often thought of as a swamp, the Glades are actually a slow-moving river flowing over an area 40 miles wide by 100 miles long, from the south shore of Lake Okeechobee to the mangrove estuaries of Florida Bay.
- Lori Sorrentino
- Naples, Florida USA
Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Eighth Biennial Review - 2020 also reviews the recently developed Combined Operational Plan, which is a prerequisite for CERP progress in the central Everglades, and examines issues facing the northern and southern estuaries, including priorities for science to support restoration decision making.
Apr 26, 2020 · Sunday, April 26, 2020. Florida History: Everglades. During recent months, I had the privilege of visiting The Everglades National Park in southern Florida. While I've been to over a dozen national parks in the United States, The Everglades area surprised me with its unique diversity.
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