Photo by Carl Juste.
Simply put, more roseate spoonbills means a healthier Everglades. According to a recent Miami Herald article, biologists use the number of these birds found nesting in the Florida Bay, a large lonely isolated stretch at the southwest tip of the Everglades, to determine the health of the Everglades. More roseate spoonbills mean fresh water from Lake Okeechobee is flowing freely southward. Something that hasn't happened for more than half a century since the lake was first dyked and the Everglades was drained for agriculture and people. Add rising sea levels and the combined effect is driving the birds-- all of them, not just the spoonbills-- away. Audubon Florida's Research Director Jerry Lorenz thinks FlorIda Bay might be doomed. Since 2000 the salt water around the Bay has risen by 5 inches. This confuses the birds since they have been conditioned over the centuries to look for the appearance of dry land as the water recedes, signaling the beginning of another nesting season-- and a source of food for the newborn chicks (pooling water captures an easily harvested food source by the parents). Unfortunately, nowadays, it never comes.
If you read Book Two, you know the FBI blames the New Seminole for blowing up the Lake Okeechobee dike and want to arrest Nokosee and me for domestic terrorism (hence me holing up in the Miccosukee Embassy seeking "Sanctuary"). But we didn't do it. We heard about it after the fact like everybody else through the news. As I said in Book Two, if anybody did it, it was that nutcase Indian Larry. Go find him, Micco Mann, and leave us alone. That said, even with the catastrophic flood that followed the explosion, scientist have shown that none of that water impacted Florida Bay. Why? Thanks to all of the flood control canals and dams, it never got that far.
If you read Book Two, you know the FBI blames the New Seminole for blowing up the Lake Okeechobee dike and want to arrest Nokosee and me for domestic terrorism (hence me holing up in the Miccosukee Embassy seeking "Sanctuary"). But we didn't do it. We heard about it after the fact like everybody else through the news. As I said in Book Two, if anybody did it, it was that nutcase Indian Larry. Go find him, Micco Mann, and leave us alone. That said, even with the catastrophic flood that followed the explosion, scientist have shown that none of that water impacted Florida Bay. Why? Thanks to all of the flood control canals and dams, it never got that far.
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