When you reach Flamingo, a former fishing village and now a center for
visitor services and accommodations, you will be on the shore of Florida
Bay. Here is an environment rich in variety of animal life, where
porpoises play, the American crocodile makes its last stand, and the
great white heron, once feared doomed to extinction, holds its own. The
abundance of game fish in the bay has given it a reputation as one of
the best sport-fishing grounds on the east coast.
The bay’s approximately 100 keys (low-lying islets) were built up by
mangroves and provide foothold for other plants hardy enough to
withstand the salty environment and the sometimes violent winds. The
keys are also a breeding ground for water birds, ospreys, and bald
eagles.
Florida Bay, larger than some of our States, is so shallow that at low
tide some of it is out of water; its greatest depth is about 9 feet. The
shallows and mudflats attract great numbers of wading birds, which feed
upon the abundant life sheltered in the seaweeds—a plant-and-animal
community nourished by nutrients carried in the waters flowing from the
glades and mangroves.
To the west beyond Flamingo is Cape Sable. This near-island includes the
finest of the park’s beaches and much of the coastal prairie ecosystem.
A fringe of coconut palms along the beach could be the remnants of early
attempts at a plantation on the cape that did not survive the
hurricanes; or it could be the result of the sprouting of coconuts
carried by currents from Caribbean plantations and washed up on the
cape. For a time, casuarina trees (called “Australian pines”), which
became established on Cape Sable after Hurricane Donna, seemed to
threaten the ecology of the beach. But these invaders were mostly
removed in 1971, and now appear to be under control.
Examine the “sand” of this beach. You will discover that it is not
quartz grains—but mostly minute shell fragments. Entire shells of the
warm-water molluscs that live offshore also wash up on the beach. There
are also artifacts that speak of Indian activity in this area in past
centuries, curled centers of conch shells from which the pre-Columbian
Indians fashioned tools, and numerous pieces of pottery (potsherds).
Both shells and potsherds tempt the collector. Shelling—that is, the
collecting of _dead_ shells, for noncommercial purposes—is permitted.
But Federal law prohibits the removal of even a fragment of pottery—for
these are invaluable Indian relics, essential to continuing scientific
investigation of the human history of the region.
[Illustration: FLORIDA BAY AND THE COASTAL PRAIRIE
(_elevation: sea level to 2 feet above sea level_)]
FLORIDA BAY
1 RED-MANGROVE
2 BLACK-MANGROVE
3 WHITE-MANGROVE
4 BUTTONWOOD
5 CABBAGE PALMETTO
6 HURRICANE-KILLED BLACK-MANGROVES
7 FIG
8 POISONWOOD
CROCODILE
GREAT WHITE HERON
REDDIS EGRET
COCONUT PALM
SUCCULENTS
GRASSES
SEDGES
WATERWAY
MARL PRAIRIE
Back from the narrow beach is a drier zone of grasses and other
low-growing vegetation. Some of the plants of this zone, such as the
railroad vine, are so salt-tolerant that in places they grow almost to
the water’s edge. (No plant that is extremely sensitive to salty soil
could survive on Cape Sable.) Beyond the grassy zone is a zone of
hardwoods (buttonwood, gumbo-limbo, Jamaica dogwood), cactuses, yucca,
and other plants forming a transition from beach to coastal prairie.
Birds provide much of the visual excitement of the beach community, just
as they do in other parts of the park. Sandpipers, pelicans, gulls,
egrets, ospreys, and bald eagles use it and the bordering waters for
feeding, nesting, and resting. Mammals, notably raccoons, stalk the
beach in search of food. And the big loggerhead turtle depends on it for
nesting. In late spring and early summer the female loggerhead hauls
herself up on the beach and digs a hole above hightide mark. There she
deposits about 100 ping-pong balls—which should hatch out into baby
loggerheads. Unfortunately for this marine reptile, however, most of
them meet another fate. Hardly has the female turtle covered the eggs
with sand and started back toward the water, than they are dug up and
devoured by raccoons and other predators. These conditions created such
high mortality of the turtles that the National Park Service has adopted
special protective measures—removing some of the raccoons and erecting
wire barriers around turtle nests. These measures have been effective,
but continued surveillance is required if the loggerhead is not to
disappear from Florida.
[Illustration: THE FLAMINGO AREA]
An abundance of raccoons and other predators is not the only threat to
survival of the loggerhead turtle. A major factor in its decline is the
serious depletion of its nesting habitat. Park visitors are prohibited
from interfering with these reptiles. Cape Sable beach is today
virtually the only wild beach in South Florida, thanks to its inclusion
in Everglades National Park. At present, visitors can reach it only by
boat. But it would be foolhardy to take it for granted that the beach
will remain unspoiled. Its potential as an attraction is such that
someone not ecologically aware might believe that access for motorists
would be an improvement. Roads, however, would bring increased pressure
on the ecosystem by large numbers of visitors, and demands for further
development, for lodging, meals, and other services seem always to go
with automobiles. With continued protection from such encroachments,
Cape Sable Beach will remain a unique wilderness resource and will not
become just another recreational facility.
Merging with the beach is the coastal prairie, an ecosystem supporting
red and black mangroves, grasses, and other plants tolerant of the very
salty environment. Hardwood hammocks have developed here on Indian shell
mounds, but the trees are stunted by the saline soils. Though there is
no lack of water on the cape, much of the region appears arid because
hurricane-lashed tides have deposited soils of marl and debris so
salt-laden that only sparse vegetation develops.