mcpoz
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Everglades visit
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May 25 21:12 UTC 1997 |
I just got back from a few days in the Everglades. Although I have driven
through before, I had not spent much time there. Here are some things I found
interesting:
- They have hordes of 3" grasshoppers - they are brightly patterned in yellow
and orange.
- The backroads are made by scooping "borrow pits" or canals along their
entire length. The result is a canal running along each road. This canal
is full of life, most noticably alligators. These move faster than I ever
imagined, both in the water and on the ground. They say the gators can
easily outrun you, and I believe it. They are very cautious, moving away
upon sight of you. BUT - a 8 footer would have had to eat probably 5000
pounds of critters to attain his bulk of (750 lbs ?)
- Most pools are filled with gar pike - about 2-1/2 ft long. There must be
at least a thousand in some pools of 20 x 40 ft. (These guys will gladly
eat the 3" grasshoppers if you toss them in).
- There is a new concern - Burmese Pythons. A local privatly owned "nature
center has 4 pythons captured locally. The largest was 14 ft long. The
owner of the "nature center" had a local news article talking about the
finding of the large snakes (can get to 20-30 ft).
- There is a frog called a "pig frog" which makes a groan very similar to
the noise an aligator makes. Thus when you are walking through the bush,
you never really know . . .
- The few remaining virgin timber cypress trees are really impressive in
size. I could not estimate their height - maybe 120 ft.
- There are lots of alien tree species which are threatening the ecology.
There is an Australian Pine, a Maleluca, and a Brazilian Pepper Tree. The
first two have eradication programs. The Brazilian Pepper Tree is a
major concern and it spreads so effectively that they do not know how to
stop it. (My daughter is working with AmericaCorps cutting down Malelucas)
- Tiny black mosquitos are thicker than I have ever seen anywhere. We had
to wear headnets when we went back in the remote areas.
- There were lots of beautiful birds - it is a birder's dream.
- There is an endangered panther there - rarely seen, but evidently footprints
are common. Even so, they estimate there are only 40 or 50 left.
- There were huge horseflies which everyone said were attracted to exhaust
fumes. This seemed doubtful to me, but everywhere we drove on the backroads
we had a "tail" cloud of these flies. They remained around the rear of an
idling car, also.
- I took some pictures of some swamp pools with cypress trees. Anyone know
what purpose the cypress "knees" serve?
- That's it!
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