![]() The drought is exacerbating the fire problems. “The presence of people is always such a threatening thing,” environmental activist and author Marjory Stoneman Douglas, an expert on the Everglades, said. “If you took away the man-caused fires, we wouldn’t have near the impact,” Utley said. Two-thirds of the fires have been started by man, either accidentally or on purpose. The same causes of this fire season - too little water and too much civilization - may bring even worse fires next year, Utley warned. There used to be a catastrophic fire season once every 10 years, he said, but in the 1980s it has occurred every four years - 1981, 1985 and now 1989. The frequency of “catastrophic fire seasons” is increasing, Utley said. 27 in Broward County in February and March. The large fires have included a 17,000-acre blaze along U.S. Neil Santaniello can be reached at or 56.On Wednesday, a 75,000-acre fire raged in the Everglades National Park, a 4,050-acre fire burned north of the Tamiami Trail and about 1,000 acres of muck south of Thompson Park in northwest Dade have been smoldering since January. If the lake falls low enough, and long enough, before summer rains arrive, the marsh areas should rejuvenate, Rosen said. High water in the past five years has overtopped 70 percent of the lake’s grasses according to anglers, hindering their ability to regenerate, said senior scientist Barry Rosen, of the South Florida Water Management District. Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates lake levels. That vegetation forms marshes in the 730-square-mile shallow lake critical for sheltering juvenile fish, said Karen Estock, of the U.S. Pepper and eel grass are starting to peep out of the water on the south side of the lake. Positive ripples also can be found in Lake Okeechobee. “The birds do have young now, and there are also eggs in the nests,” park spokeswoman Deborah Nordeen said. “All these little fish are concentrated into creeks and ponds and are easy pickings for wading birds,” he said.Īn endangered sparrow in Everglades National Park, often flooded out of its nesting season, now has the right conditions to breed across much of its muhly grass turf, the park reported. As a result, those birds have had their first truly successful nesting season after “producing practically nothing” the last half-dozen years, said Jerry Lorenz, of the National Audubon Society’s Tavernier Research Center. Shrinking pockets of water in mangrove swamps in the Florida Bay islands are packing together food for roseate spoonbills. However, “since the early 1990s, we haven’t really had a dry season like we should have,” Huffstodt said. Water levels normally drop in the marsh in the winter until the May-June rainy season begins, and wading bird nesting is linked to that cycle. Meanwhile, in areas of the Everglades not burning, the lack of rain is having a positive ecological impact. Anderson said it is unclear yet whether the Everglades wildfire ignited muck, too. State drought measures show South Florida has baked to muck-fire potential. “That’s the real threat to wildlife - muck fires,” Huffstodt said. ![]() Muck fires, the hardest to squelch, can burn out the soil below tree islands and tree roots, destroying those mini-forests. If the marsh bottom grows too dry, wildfires will burn downward, through the combustible muck until reaching the Everglades’ bedrock. Alligators hunker down in depressions in the marsh floor, or slip into canals.įire can create feeding opportunities for Everglades inhabitants.Īnderson said he saw wading birds taking advantage of the more-open, charred areas to forage in pools of water for fish, apple snails and other chow.Īn extended dry spell has helped make the Everglades fire-prone by lowering water levels in the marsh and sapping moisture from its vegetation. Fish and frogs take refuge in deeper-water sloughs.
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