Deer and coyote leave their tracks in the soft sand of what passes in Florida for hilly terrain.
Florida panthers have been known to do the same.
Thanks to a recent $38 million purchase of an interest in this mosaic of native Florida habitats and human-altered pastures, ditches and roads known as Hatchineha Ranch by The Nature Conservancy, panthers and other wide-ranging wildlife will continue to enjoy a nearly unbroken corridor between the Everglades and Central Florida and perhaps beyond.
The sale, announced just before Thanksgiving, stops plans to turn this 5,134-acre ranch at Polk County’s distant eastern boundary into a city-sized housing development.
That project, called Hatchineha Lakes, was headed for a public hearing in February before the County Commission.
That hearing won’t be necessary now, though county planners are still waiting for a letter formally asking that the project be withdrawn.
Keith Fountain, director of protection for the Florida Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, said the preservation of Hatchineha Ranch has been a high priority because of its location in the regional landscape.
“This is one of the last high biodiversity landscapes in Central Florida,” he said.
But to understand the importance of the deal, you have to zoom out far enough to see how this piece fits in the regional landscape.
a piece of the puzzle
The purchase not only completes a nearly continuous corridor of conservation lands around 6,665-acre Lake Hatchineha along the Polk-Osceola line, but it fills a gap in a wildlife corridor that reaches from the outskirts of Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee and into the Everglades.
Think of a regional wildlife corridor as something akin to an interstate highway for everything from Florida panthers and black bears to migrating warblers and waterfowl.
Think of any barrier, such a new network of roads and fences that accompany new development, as something like having the road closed between two interchanges with no easy way to re-enter.
The importance of the corridor was described in a 2002 report prepared for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The report said this area was an important link between the Avon Park Air Force Range and the Green Swamp, which was depicted as part of a more comprehensive statewide corridor system stretching all the way to the Florida Panhandle.
“Habitat within this linkage might also help support panther re-establishment in South-Central Florida in the future,” the report concluded.
years in the making
The Nature Conservancy’s success caps years of preservation efforts.
Once called Imagination Farms, the property topped the list of tracts Polk County sought to protect when the county’s environmentally sensitive lands referendum passed in 1994.
The Polk County’s Environmental Lands Program and the South Florida Water Management District unsuccessfully pursued its acquisition for years.
Fountain said the recently announced deal came as a result of a number of opportune circumstances.
For one thing, the state’s Florida Forever fund is temporarily tapped out because of the state budget crisis, so very little land is being purchased by state officials.
That means landowners interested in selling large tracts for conservation are turning to private groups such as the conservancy.
“There are more opportunities than we’ve ever seen before, but we’re only taking the cream of the crop,” he said.
There was another aspect that aided this deal, which is the cooperation of the owners, Hatchineha Ranch LLC of West Palm Beach.
“I can’t underestimate that this would not have been possible without the landowner’s cooperation,” he said.
Ernie Cox, one of the representatives for Hatchineha Ranch involved in the concept, agreed it was “a pretty creative deal.”
The deal worked this way: Hatchineha Ranch donated 1,130 acres to The Nature Conservancy, and the conservancy purchased a partial interest in the remaining 4,004 acres.
“I’m very excited to have been a part of it,” Cox sad.
rare habitat
He said the restoration of the site’s diverse habitat that includes scrub, flat woods, oak hammocks and extensive - 2,160 acres - wetlands.
Hatchineha Ranch contains an unusual habitat called cutthroat seeps that will be part of the master plan.
Cutthroat seeps are areas where groundwater seeps to the surface, characterized by the presence of cutthroat grass, a type of grass found only in a few scattered locations in Central and South Florida.
“This has the most immense area of cutthroat I’ve ever seen,” the conservancy’s Fountain said.
In fact, in some sections of the property, the cutthroat grass covers the ground everywhere you look.
At this point, there’s no timetable for the restoration, but work of this type typically takes years to plan and implement.
While the restoration is under way, the land will remain in private ownership.
Fountain said someday it is likely to be purchased by the government and become either an addition to the adjacent 8,250-acre Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek State Park or to land managed by the South Florida Water Management District.
[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. Read more views on the environment at environment.theledger.com.]
State lawmakers in Miami-Dade County are questioning the wisdom of the state’s planned $1.34 billion buyout of U.S. Sugar Corp.
A press release from state Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami, chairman of the Miami-Dade legislative delegation, said the delegation of lawmakers has serious concerns about the expense and effectiveness of the buyout, which is designed to restore a natural flow-way of water between Lake Okeechobee and the southern Everglades.
The lawmakers announced their own public hearing, to be held at 2 p.m., Wednesday, to gather input on the sale of land to the South Florida Water Management District.
According to the press release, Zapata sent a letter expressing concerns and inviting water district officials to brief lawmakers. The district’s governing board is set to vote on the buyout Dec. 16. U.S. Sugar’s board approved the sale contract Monday.
“Although we are all supportive of the Everglades restoration and restoring its natural flow, several members have expressed serious doubt whether this is the correct action to take at this time,” Zapata said in the release.
State Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, said in the release he has “grave concerns with the concept of an unelected board spending over $1 billion of taxpayer funds on land at a time when I’m having to tell social service, health care and education providers that we’re making major cuts that will affect our most vulnerable citizens.”
Meanwhile the U.S. Sugar board’s approval of the sale was blasted by The Lawrence Group of Tennessee, which has attempted to make a competing offer to buy the sugar giant in its entirety.
A press release from The Lawrence Group expressed “surprise and extreme disappointment at the announcement yesterday that the Board of Directors of United States Sugar Corporation had approved the contract.”
The agenda focused on boating issues, including proposed legislation on statutes related to vessels and vessel registration. Commissioners directed staff to proceed with proposing new regulations concerning anchoring, mooring and local governments’ jurisdiction for the Florida Legislature to consider. Also, Commissioners adopted new rules regarding boating restrictions in Martin and Okeechobee counties, based on a vessel traffic study and requests for revisions from stakeholders and governmental bodies.
Commissioners revoked a final order that permitted the City of Naples to post waterway markers in the Naples Bay area. The FWC granted the permit in March 2007, but an appeals court overturned the decision, requiring the Commission to execute a new final order denying it.
In addition, Commissioners heard staff reports on high water and wildlife issues in the Everglades and reviewed proposed rules to improve Florida’s quota hunt program for sportsmen who will use the state’s wildlife management area system during the 2009-10 hunting seasons. Commissioners directed staff to proceed with the new rules, which will come up for final approval at the February meeting in Destin.
In addition, Commissioners heard an update on a general management plan for the Big Cypress National Preserve Addition and a summary on the recent summit, “Florida’s Wildlife: On the front line of climate change.”
Also during Wednesday’s session, Commissioners voted to proceed with a land swap proposal by the Saddle Creek Corp., City of Lakeland and the state Board of Trustees concerning the FWC-managed Tenoroc Fish Management Area. The proposal involves swapping an FWC-managed 10-acre tract to go to Saddle Creek Corp. in exchange for 40 acres adjacent to state-owned land.
FWC Commissioners selected Rodney Barreto as chairman and Kathy Barco as vice chairman for 2009.
A final public vote on proposed rule amendments for gag and red grouper in Gulf of Mexico state waters was on Thursday’s agenda. Commissioners approved rules to reduce the recreational bag limit for Gulf gag grouper from five fish to two fish daily per person and prohibit the recreational harvest of Gulf gag grouper from Feb. 1 through March 31. This is consistent with gag grouper regulations in Gulf federal waters. The Commission also voted to increase the recreational bag limit for Gulf red grouper from one fish to two fish daily per person.
Other new rule amendments approved by the Commission include increasing the recreational minimum size limit for greater amberjack from 28 to 30 inches fork length and increasing the commercial and recreational minimum size limit for gray triggerfish from 12 to 14 inches fork length in Gulf state waters. These rules are consistent with current regulations in Gulf federal waters.
The new Gulf gag and red grouper, greater amberjack and gray triggerfish rules take effect on Jan. 1.
In other marine fisheries action, the Commission proposed a draft rule amendment that would make the recreational Gulf red snapper fishing season in state waters consistent with federal regulations. The proposed red snapper open season in Gulf state waters would be from June 1 through Sept. 30, if adopted by the Commission at their meeting in February.
Another draft rule amendment proposed by the FWC would end the moratorium on the reduction of lobster trap certificates and provide that the number of trap certificates be reduced by 10 percent to a purchaser only when they are sold or transferred to someone outside the immediate family of the certificate holder.
The Commission also proposed a series of draft rule amendments for the marine life (aquarium species) fishery. The proposed rules would add new fish and invertebrate species to marine life regulations, establish or change size and bag limits and gear specifications for several marine life species, and make other administrative and technical marine life rule changes.
In addition, the FWC proposed a draft rule that would establish six regional closed seasons around the state to the harvest of blue crabs with traps. These closures would extend for up to 10 days each to help identify and retrieve lost and abandoned blue crab traps from Florida waters.
Final public hearings on the proposed red snapper, lobster, marine life and blue crab rules will be held in February.
The full agenda is available online at www.MyFWC.com/commission/2008/Dec08/index.htm.
The debate over whether to set speed limits on Palmetto Bay canals continued.
BY PATRICIA MAZZEI
Last month, Palmetto Bay officials listened to people who live on village canals complain about loud, speeding boaters. Set a speed limit on the waterways, they asked.
On Monday, council members heard from the other side — villagers who said they moved to Palmetto Bay to could enjoy the water. Their plea: Protect our lifestyle.
”We spend our weekends on the canal,” Rainer Schael said. “We fish, we ski, we play.”
The village is considering designating the canals as minimum-wake and slow-speed zones, requiring boaters and skiers to move slowly through the waterways. That is a change from the original proposal before the council in November, which would have set a more stringent no-wake zone requirement.
Canal users ignoring the rule could be cited — the waterways equivalent of a speeding ticket on the highway — by state, county or municipal officers, including the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which has some jurisdiction over the canals.
The measure was proposed by former Vice Mayor Linda Robinson and state Rep. Julio Robaina, who said they were reacting to ”years” of complaints from residents.
But it could keep people from water skiing, jet skiing and otherwise enjoying the canals, some residents said at Monday’s council meeting.
”This ordinance is absolutely crazy,” said Ryan Swakon, who said he boats, kayaks and wake boards on the waterways and nearby lakes.
The large, cigarette and commercial fishing boats residents spoke about last month could not fit through the canals, he said.
His father, Ed Swakon — president of the Miami Marine Council, a group that works to preserve boater rights — said boaters from outside the village were to blame for speeding.
”The people who don’t understand [responsible boating] won’t obey your law anyway,” he said.
Still, speeding boats threaten other people on the canal, other villagers said.
”I have been run up into the bank more than once,” said Henry Clifford, a kayaker. “I don’t like the idea of having to listen constantly if there’s a boat coming around the corner to nail me.”
Elected officials largely stayed out of the debate, although Vice Mayor Brian Pariser said he was concerned about people disturbed by boat noise.
Council member Shelley Stanczyk, who lives on a canal, said the waterways were built to prevent flooding. Boat traffic, she said, has decreased recently. But, she added, “you can’t ignore the fact that they do speed.”
The village will hold a town hall-style meeting to discuss the issue at 6 p.m. Jan. 14 at the Deering Estate Visitor’s Center, 16701 SW 72nd Ave. It will then take up the measure for a third time, probably in February.
Florida officials have agreed to new terms for a land deal with the largest U.S. producer of cane sugar to increase the availability of water storage and flow to the vast Everglades wetland. The new agreement, subject to approval by the South Florida Water Management District, includes the purchase of more than 180,000 acres from U.S. Sugar Corp. at a price of $1.34 billion. The agreement is a step down from terms announced in June, which included transfer to public ownership of 187,000 acres and all the sugar company’s assets, including 200 miles of railroad, a state-of-the-art sugar mill, sugar refinery and citrus processing plant for $1.75 billion.
…The new terms include a lease-back of the land for $50 per acre, for a period covering seven crop cycles. The sugar mill, refinery and citrus processing facilities, railroads, office buildings, equipment and the GilchristCounty citrus nursery will remain the property of U.S. Sugar.
…The 180,000 acres, one of the largest environmental land acquisitions in U.S. history, are needed by the South Florida Water Management District to protect Florida’s coastal estuaries and better revive, restore and preserve the Everglades. The land will be used to reestablish a part of the historic connection between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades through a managed system of storage and treatment areas. This is expected to reduce the potential for harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee to Florida’s coastal rivers and estuaries when lake levels are high.
Recreational stakeholders and Environmentalists were pleased with the outcome of negotiations. … “This is just the shot in the arm we need to improve the health of one of America’s most treasured, but troubled ecosystems. Floridians on both coasts will be able to say goodbye to damaging freshwater releases that foul up the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, and the continuous abuse of Lake Okeechobee. Which has sat idled in the middle of all of this with a silent voice taking all of the abuse.
Three construction teams will beef up repair work at Lake Okeechobee’s aging dike in South Florida.
The Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $29 million contract on Wednesday to Hayward Baker of Maryland. A reinforcing wall is being built through the middle of the earthen dike and a supporting berm will be added around the outside. Two other companies were already approved to start work this month.
The 143-mile, 70-year-old Herbert Hoover Dike protects lakeside communities from flooding.
The companies will shore up the most vulnerable section, a 22-mile stretch between Port Mayaca and Belle Glade.
The project is projected to cost more than $800 million and take until 2030.
Summer storms prompted the corps to start dumping lake water out to sea to ease the strain on the dike.
ORLANDO — Scientists addressing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s first climate change summit last week forecast a bleak future for the state’s fish and wildlife over the next century:
• As many as 30 percent of native species could face extinction from habitat loss because of rising ocean levels.
• Coral reefs could begin dissolving in 10 to 12 years as increasing carbon dioxide levels make oceans more acidic.
• South Florida’s mangrove forests could be greatly reduced or even lost, leading to increasing storm surges.
• Invasive species such as melaleuca trees and blue tilapia — a hardy freshwater fish from South America — will spread north, crowding out Florida’s remaining native plants and animals.
”We don’t have to wait for the future; it’s already here,” Hal Wanless, chairman of the geological sciences department at University of Miami, told workshop participants Wednesday.
The three-day session might have been the first of its kind organized by a state agency. Chuck Collins, FWC southeast regional director, said Florida really is on the front line of global climate change because it sticks out like a thumb from the rest of the North American continent with 8,000 miles of shoreline, making it very susceptible to sea level rise and forecast increases in major storms.
Ironically, the summit — originally scheduled in August — had to be postponed because of Tropical Storm Fay. It is expected to lead to the development of policies and strategies aimed at minimizing impacts on fish, plants and animals.
”We are experts on wildlife management but not climate change,” Collins said.
Speakers at the summit’s opening session Wednesday said Florida policymakers must act now to prepare for what Wanless called “changes to Florida and Earth beyond your wildest imagination.”
As polar ice sheets melt, he said, South Florida could experience a 1 ½-foot rise in sea level over the next 50 years, and a three- to five-foot rise by the end of the century.
”Turkey Point is out in the middle of Biscayne Bay with a three-foot rise,” Wanless said. “With a four- to five-foot rise in sea level, all our barrier islands will be abandoned. The Everglades would be overwhelmed. The difference between a one- to two-foot rise and a three- to five-foot rise is all the difference between messy and wet, and totally unliveable and loss of coastal environments.”
Thomas Eason, in charge of habitat and species conservation for the FWC, cited several examples of how climate change already is affecting Florida’s wildlife.
”There’s been a 50 percent reduction in coral cover in the Keys since 1996,” Eason said. “The common snook is now seen off Alabama. Blue tilapia have expanded their range 50 miles northwest all the way up to Gainesville. Sooty terns are nesting 1-2 months earlier. The brown pelican and wood stork center of breeding has moved northward.”
Reed Noss, a professor of conservation biology at University of Central Florida, predicted that as sea levels rise, about half of Florida’s population would be forced to move away from the coasts, crowding into inland regions such as the Lake Wales Ridge and Kissimmee Valley. The human influx, Noss said, would crowd out wildlife, such as the endangered Florida panther. He recommended the creation of large upland preserves with travel corridors for fleeing wildlife.
”Is it cost-effective to spend billions on Everglades restoration, or would funds be better spent to move species upland?” Noss said.
To stem the loss of coral reefs, Robert van Woesik, a biology professor at Florida Institute of Technology, recommended designating networks of marine protected areas with no fishing allowed.
”Local protection leads to local benefits,” he said. “Protection really does matter.”
Other speakers advocated stepping up efforts to control non-native species; allowing natural coastal ecosystems — not seawalls — to buffer shorelines; reducing manmade stressors, such as carbon emissions; and restoring natural freshwater flows to lakes and rivers.
Said Len Berry, director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Florida International University: “The message to take from this is that planning needs to start now. We want to come out of here with things we ought to be concentrating on.”
A mere rainstorm isn’t enough to discourage FWC fisheries biologist Don Fox from working in Lake Okeechobee to ensure the lake’s good health. Fox was excited to find this clump of coontail growing on its own in the lake. Coontail is important to nurturing the bottom of the food chain that makes the lake a world-class fishery.
OKEECHOBEE — It used to be nasty, worthless muck inhibiting plants and wildlife at the bottom of the lake; now, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, that same muck is supporting turkeys, turtles, several types of mammals and even a covey of quail.
Don Fox, a commission biologist, said muck dredged from the bottom of Lake Okeechobee to help re-establish the plant life that nurtures the lake’s world-class fishery has been used to build islands, and a variety of plants thriving on the dried-out muck provide food and cover for the animals.
Lawson Snyder, the commission’s deputy director of habitat and species conservation, said the dredging began in 2001 when drought lowered the lake level, was postponed when hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 filled the lake and restarted this summer when the lake was at a record low.
“I won’t say a drought is ever a good thing,” Snyder said, “but it did give us the opportunity to get in and get this work done.”
Since then, Tropical Storm Fay has raised the lake to about 15 feet; but Snyder said the man-made islands in the marshy northwest still rise above the water.
“Even at 16 feet, you can pull up to the islands,” he said.
Snyder said the islands do not contain any of the arsenic-contaminated muck that was scraped from southern Lake Okeechobee and hauled away.
“All of the muck is tested before it’s used,” he said, “and everything in the area of the lake where the islands were made had either no contaminates or levels that were low enough to be acceptable for use.”
Only two months ago at the start of August, Lake Okeechobee was still below the “11 ft above sea level” mark … and at the tail end of its record-setting 511 day streak below that level. The Lake looked like it was rising out of the cellar just like it did in 2001 (when it rose gradually through the summer and crested at 15 ft near the “wet season’s” end in mid November).
That scenario changed when Fay hit and the Lake topped the 15 ft mark by early September in record-setting speed.
Just like that it looked like the Lake “hopped tracks” over into 2004 chart-topping territory.
But those fears were premature … at least for now. Lake stage has crested, and as of yesterday, it officially dropped a notch below 15 ft, down to 14.97.
There are many people with special interest that would like to see the lake reach 16 ft, as anglers, outdoorsmen and true conservationist of the lake. We would love to see the lake stay between 12ft and 14ft, which is also recommended by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission.
The self-interest opinions of where the Okeechobee lake level should be are not what we need, very few of those opinions have any real interest in whether the god gifted natural lake comes back to it’s old form as a world class fishery.
While there’s a stir regarding the sell out of U.S. Sugar and the economic impact that area will face, which is a feasible concern. Just maybe we should for once turn our focus to the lake and ask a couple of difficult questions, “what does it need?, what’s best for the lake?, what is the future?”
The lake has taken abuse for many years, while providing a huge economic impact to one of the largest industry in Florida, “fishing.” The Outdoor recreation industry supports more jobs then Disney World and bring some 5 Billion dollars to our states economy, Lake Okeechobee has always been a big part of that number. This alone deserves our attention, respect and continued support of all parties as it is a Worldwide land mark and a gift for our state. “Let’s start treating it like one!”
Paul Shafland, director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Exotic Fisheries Lab, captured this year’s “Pass It On” Award.
September 2008
The award was given by the Florida Outdoor Writers Association (FOWA) and Bass Pro Shops.
He bagged the honor at FOWA’s annual conference Sept. 13.
The “Pass It On” Award is an achievement award created by Bass Pro Shops to recognize individuals who have gone the extra mile or devoted their lives to introduce others to the joys of the outdoors.
“Recognition by Florida’s premier professional outdoor writers makes this especially meaningful,” Shafland said. “They are my professional peers, and that makes this award a high honor.”
Shafland began his devotion to the outdoors 34 years ago when he started working as a biologist at the then-Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, now FWC.
“I’ve always been interested in fishing, and that developed into a strong professional desire to understand and help manage Florida’s native and nonnative fisheries.”
Shafland said he is particularly passionate about enhancing Florida’s freshwater fisheries, especially the urban-based butterfly peacock bass fishery.
During his career at FWC, his most notable contribution has been introduction of butterfly peacock bass in South Florida waters. In 1984, in an effort to fight an exploding harmful nonnative fish population, Shafland and his team got approval to introduce the bass. While the butterfly peacock bass is a nonnative species, it was released in South Florida only after extensive research determined there would be no ill effects on native fish populations. The plan was to use the species to prey on undesirable nonnatives and produce desirable fishing opportunities. It is the only nonnative fish legally and intentionally released by the FWC.
In the 24 years since the release of the butterfly peacock bass, exotic fish populations in South Florida have declined, and the butterfly peacock bass is one of the most popular sport fish for freshwater anglers. Anglers spend millions of dollars annually to catch this fish.
“I appreciate everyone — especially the thousands of anglers, young and old — who have made Florida’s urban-based butterfly peacock fishery the success it is,” Shafland said.
