麻豆APP

Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park is a large natural area encompassing the southwestern portion of the more extensive Everglades region in southern Florida, U.S.

The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing 0.25 miles (0.40 km) per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay.

It was authorized in 1934, but because of difficulties acquiring land, it was not established until 1947. Everglades National Park encompasses 2,357 square miles (6,105 square km).

The Park protects an unparalleled landscape that provides important habitat for numerous rare and endangered species like the manatee, American crocodile, and the elusive Florida panther.

Below are the top 10 astonishing facts about Everglades National Park;

1. Both alligators and crocodiles live here

Everglades American crocodile – Wikipedia

This is the only place in the entire world where both American alligators and American crocodiles coexist in the wild. The crocodiles are mostly found in small numbers in coastal areas of the glades, while alligators prefer to stay inland, near freshwater.

Crocodiles typically live in saltwater habitats, and alligators are mainly found in freshwater marshes and lakes. However, the Everglades ecosystem provides a natural habitat for these species that would otherwise typically inhabit different ecosystems.

To differentiate the two species, alligators have a broader U-shaped snout; while crocodiles have a more pointed, slender V-shaped snout. Alligators are also darker in appearance with black coloring, and crocodiles are typically a lighter, grayish brown.

2. Fires are common and important

Everglades National Park on fire – National Park Service

For many of us, we imagine the Everglades as being swampland and wet, murky waters. This is true, but there is a dry season when weather patterns create drought-like conditions that are perfect for fire.

The fire out breaks are an essential part of maintenance, clearing the way for a complex system of interdependent ecosystems to thrive.

During the dry season the fish and amphibians survive from one year to the next in the holes that Alligators burrow in the mud creating pools.

3. Home to unique, rare and endangered species

Everglades National Park Florida Panther – Wikipedia

Everglades National Park has 9 distinct habitats providing a home to thirty-nine native Florida species listed as threatened or endangered, or are candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973.

Nearly 300 species of fish, countless insects, 17 species of amphibians and more than 360 species of birds, 40 species of mammals and 50 distinct kinds of reptiles can be found in the Everglades National Park.

The Florida panther and the crocodile are just two of the endangered animals the Everglades ecosystem protects. The Cape Sable seaside sparrow and the Florida leafwing butterfly, are only found in the park and its adjacent lands.

4. It has the largest contiguous stand of protected mangroves in the Northern Hemisphere

Red mangrove Everglades National Park – Wikipedia

Mangrove forest covers the coastlines of South Florida, sometimes growing inland depending on the amount of salt water present within the Everglades ecosystems.

Red mangroves, with stilt-like roots, as well as black and white mangroves, thrive in the tidal waters of the park where freshwater from the Everglades mixes with saltwater.

The mangrove system in Everglades National Park is the largest continuous system of mangroves in the world.

5. The Burmese pythons have wreaked havoc within the park

Burmese pythons – Wikipedia

Scientists stated that Burmese pythons caused a recent 90 to 99 percent drop in the small mammal population in the Everglades National Park. On October 24, 1979, was the first record of a python being caught in the park on Tamiami Trail. The actual species is not listed on the record.

The Burmese python is a nonvenomous snake native to the jungles and marshes of Southeast Asia. The pythons were imported from Southeast Asia by the tens of thousands for the exotic pet trade, and escaped pets established a breeding population in Florida by the mid-1990s.

Since 2017, Florida has implemented a python action team and a python elimination program to trap and remove pythons from the state.

6. It is one of the largest wetlands in the world

Everglades National Park – Unsplash

The Everglades historically covered approximately three million acres, stretching from headwaters in the Kissimmee River into Lake Okeechobee, through what is now Everglades National Park, and emptying into Florida Bay.

Today Everglades National Park covers 1,508,976 acres (2,357.8 sq mi; 6,106.6 km2), throughout Dade, Monroe, and Collier counties in Florida, at the southern tip of the Atlantic coastal plain.

This is because of decades of draining wetlands and reclaiming land for agriculture and urban development. However, key restoration projects aim to reconnect the flow of water through South Florida to ensure that the remaining Everglades ecosystem can get enough clean water.

7. Many people think of the Everglades as a deep swamp

Airboat on Everglades National Park – Flckr

As hard as it might be to believe, but the Everglades is actually a river that鈥檚 constantly moving. Water trickles from north to south from Lake Okeechobee, forming a slow-moving river that鈥檚 sixty miles wide and a hundred miles long.

The 鈥淩iver of Grass鈥� in the Everglades is always drifting along at a snail鈥檚 pace, and that slightly-moving water is a crucial component of the Everglades鈥� ecosystem.

The water is shallow at an average depth of only 4-5 feet and a maximum depth of about 9 feet. Airboats are the best to use on the river as they have a flat bottom with no motor down in the water to disturb the sediment below.

8. Mosquitoes are everywhere

Mosquito – Wikipedia

There are at least 43 different species of mosquitoes that are found just in the Everglades National Park, and 13 of these bite people.

Mosquitoes are most abundant during the Everglades wet season from May through summer, and their numbers drop significantly during the drier winter months.

While mosquitoes are known carriers of disease, there have been no reported cases of mosquitoes in Everglades carrying the Zika virus. However, always carry bugs repellant when visiting the park.

9. The Everglades is a huge source of water

Palm Beach – Flickr

The water in the Everglades provides drinking water for 7 million people鈥搕hat鈥檚 one-third of all Floridians. This simply implies that one out of every three Floridians rely on the Everglades for drinking water.

Water from the Everglades National Park drains into the Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies drinking water for Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County communities. he ecosystem acts as a natural filter, removing excess nutrients and keeping out seawater.

10. It is one of only three locations in the world

Everglades National Park – Wikipedia

The Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three of these lists; UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976.  The Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

The park was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1979. A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Also, within the same year the park was listed as a Ramsar Convention. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands.