Day Two Miami

Everglades National Park

I don't have the time to write a post yet, but I will add a video clip of an alligator we saw at the ENP! Actually, there were several, but one in particular gave us a performance. The bird is an anhinga...more on those later.


It's Tuesday, but I wanted to return and finish the Sunday post. Back to the alligators...listen to an interesting podcast about this fascinating animal by clicking here.

The Everglades National Park was an excellent example of what humans do to change the environment. Lake Okeechobee, a large lake in the south part of Florida is at the north end of the Everglades, which are huge wetlands, sometimes called swamps. It has a multitude of habitats, and is the largest subtropical wilderness in the US, boasting many rare and endangered species. View a great video about the Everglades here.

We discussed how the National Park Service is undergoing a 40-year restoration project to redirect the flow of fresh water to it's more natural route and we learned a lot about the invasive species (plant and animal) that have greatly affected the area. When I return, we'll talk about these invasive species in class. For now, I'll just tell you that the python is one of the species not natural to this area. People have let them loose because they became unmanageable as pets. Now, the area has a large number of pythons (one estimate states in the hundred thousands!), that are now preying upon and greatly reducing the numbers of other species.