WILDLIFE PARK FOCUSES ON CONSERVATIONISTS AND CONSERVATION
IN JANUARY
- Special programs on how we can protect our environment and save our resources Guest article by Susan Strawbridge, Park Services Specialist
Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park has set aside the month of January
to honor some of Florida’s well-known naturalists and conservationists. These include
William Bartram, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Rachel Carson, and Archie Carr, all who
have played an important part in the conservation of Florida’s natural resources. In
addition to displays in the Visitor Center and the Discovery Center, we will be presenting
two special programs on how we can all be conservationists by making small changes
in our daily lives.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Senior Wildlife Assistance
Biologist Catherine Kennedy will present a program on Florida’s backyard/native
wildlife and conservation/coexistence on Friday, January 15, 2016, starting at 1:00
pm in the Florida Room of the Visitor Center on US 19. There is no charge to attend the
program. Regular admission would apply for entrance into the Wildlife Park.
On Thursday, January 21, 2016, Bert Henderson will present a program on How to
conserve energy in your home and help the environment while saving money.
Henderson is a retired Energy Extension Faculty II formerly with the Program for
Resource Efficient Communities at the University of Florida. As faculty at the Bushnell
Center for Sustainability, he was responsible for marketing and presenting programs on
energy conservation, sustainable green construction, and hurricane and emergency
preparedness. The program will start at 1:00 pm. There is no charge to attend and
handouts will be available.
The earliest of the four conservationists to be recognized this month is William
Bartram, 1739 – 1823. Bartram was a naturalist/explorer of the American Southeast in
the late 18th Century and was known for his illustrations of birds, plants and Native
American culture. Bartram also collected plant specimens for his father’s botanical
garden in Philadelphia. A record of his explorations is contained in “Bartram’s Travels”
published in 1791. This book has become a classic in American nature writing.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1890 – 1998, was born in Minneapolis in 1890, and
graduated from Wellesley College. In 1915 she moved to Miami to work for her father at
the Miami Herald. She started her journalism career as a society reporter, but soon
found herself as an articulate crusader for women’s rights, racial justice, and
conservation.
Conservationist Ernest Coe recruited her in the fight to save the Everglades as a
national park and she soon became the public voice of this effort. She wrote “There are
no other Everglades in the world. They are unique…in the simplicity, the diversity, the
related harmony of the forms of life they enclose. The miracle of the light pours over the
green and brown expanse of saw grass, and of water, shining and slow-moving below,
the grass and water that is the meaning and central fact of the Everglades of Florida.”
The Everglades was established as a National Park in 1947, the same year that Marjory
Stoneman Douglas’ book, “The Everglades: River of Grass” was published and
generated support for protection of this fragile ecosystem. It is considered a classic
work.
Rachel Louise Carson, 1907 – 1964, was an American marine biologist,
conservationist and writer well known for her writings on environmental pollution and the
natural history of the sea. Carson spent many years in Florida researching its marine
communities and ecosystems for her books “Under the Sea Wind” (1941), “The Sea
Around Us” (1950), and “The Edge of the Sea” (1955). She then turned her attention to
alerting the public to the dangers of pesticides, which were killing insects and moving up
the food chain. Carson published the book “Silent Spring” (1962), which, although it was
considered controversial when released, succeeded in changing the practices of
agricultural scientists. Her best-selling “A Sense of Wonder” is considered an
environmental classic.
Carson wrote “If we have been slow to develop the general concepts of ecology and
conservation, we have been even more tardy in recognizing the facts of the ecology and
conservation of man himself. We may hope that this will be the next major phase in the
development of biology. Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being
the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces
that control all other life. Man’s future welfare, and probably even his survival, depends
upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.”
Dr. Archie Carr, 1909 -1987, was a herpetologist, ecologist, conservationist, Florida
naturalist, professor, and a gifted writer of numerous natural history books. In a tribute
to Archie Carr, Dr. David Ehrenfeld of the Sea Turtle Conservancy noted. “Dr. Carr is
responsible for accumulating and distributing much of what is known about the biology
and life cycle of sea turtles.”
In Carr’s book “A Naturalist in Florida…A Celebration of Eden,“ he writes a beautiful
passage on his experience of first coming upon our first-magnitude spring. He describes
the experience in these words: “The first time I saw Homosassa Spring I came suddenly
upon it on a winter midafternoon. It was glowing in the dark hammock like a great flatcut jewel. The light slanted in through breaks among the encircling trees, and the crystal
pond shone blue where the sky was reflected, green and maroon over the beds of water
plants, and snow white where the current had washed the bottom clean. And throughout
the whole great body of the spring were flashes of light glancing from the sides of a
myriad of fishes. Barely discernable from my angled view through the tumbling surface
over the boil, the fish seemed to be arranged in slowly circling tiers that extended from
just beneath the surface far down into the dim depths if the main boil of the spring, I had
heard that Homosassa was full of fish, but nothing anyone had told me was preparation
for the sight I saw.”
Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park will also be celebrating Lu, the
hippopotamus’ 56th birthday on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. Celebrations will be held at
10:00 am and at the 12:30 pm.
A monthly bird walk is scheduled for Saturday, January 23, starting at 8:00 am. The bird
walk is led by an experienced birder from Citrus County Audubon. Participants should
meet at 7:45 am by the flagpole at the entrance of the park’s Visitor Center located on
US 19. If you have binoculars and a field guide please bring them, but they are not
required. The walk is on Pepper Creek Trail and is an easy ¾ mile walk. You can either
walk back on the trail or take the first return boat of the day that leaves at 9:30 am.
As you can see, we have a lot planned for January, and we encourage you to visit Ellie
Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park and learn more about some of Florida’s
conservationists and enjoy our events. For more information, call the park office at (352)
628-5445, ext. 1002, Mondays through Fridays.
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