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Gives useful information about the everglades. Talks about different programs, which season is best to visit, different educational programs, how to help the Everglades.

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Everglades National Park protects an unparalleled landscape that provides important habitat for numerous rare and endangered species like the manatee, American crocodile, and the elusive Florida panther.

An international treasure as well - a World Heritage Site, International Biosphere Reserve, a Wetland of International Importance, and a specially protected area under the Cartagena Treaty. Read More

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Everglades National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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Everglades National Park protects an unparalleled landscape that provides important habitat for numerous rare and endangered species like the manatee, American crocodile, and the elusive Florida panther. An international treasure as well - a World Heritage Site, International Biosphere Reserve, a Wetland of International Importance, and a specially protected area under the Cartagena Treaty.

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The Everglades is a 2 million acre wetland ecosystem in south Florida. In the wet season Lake Okeechobee will overflow to the Everglades giving it the swamp look. Since the 1800s humans have been altering the terrain and habitats. The water from the everglades provides drinking water for 1/3 of Florida. Over 360 different birds live in the area. Around 1.7 million acres have been invaded by invasive plants.

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The Everglades is a subtropical wetland ecosystem spanning two million acres across central and south Florida. During the wet season, Lake Okeechobee overflows, releasing water into a very slow moving, shallow river dominated by sawgrass marsh-dubbed the "river of grass." The water flows southward, passing through diverse habitats, including cypress swamps, wet prairie, and mangroves, until it reaches Everglades National Park and eventually Florida Bay.

Originally the Greater Everglades ecosystem had a large diversity of habitats connected by wetlands and water bodies. Since the 1800s, humans have been altering the Everglades landscape. Water diversions and flood control structures restrict the flow of water across the sensitive landscape. Combined with agricultural and urban development, the size of the Everglades has decreased dramatically, affecting the quality of habitats in the area.

People

The Everglades is surrounded by human development, including the cities of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Its wetlands and wildlife draw large numbers of birders, anglers, boaters, and other outdoor enthusiasts. The Everglades also provides critical, and often undervalued, benefits to people, called ecosystem services. For example, the Everglades ecosystem provides drinking water for one-third of Floridians and irrigation for much of the state's agriculture. The wetlands improve water quality by filtering out pollutants and absorbing excess nutrients, replenish aquifers, and reduce flooding.

Wildlife

The Everglades is internationally known for its extraordinary wildlife. More than 360 bird species can be found in Everglades National Park alone. The Everglades is known for its many wading birds, such as white and glossy ibises, roseate spoonbills, egrets, herons, and wood storks. It also hosts huge numbers of smaller migratory birds. Some birds, such as the snail kite, wood stork, and Cape Sable seaside sparrow are threatened or endangered species.

The Everglades' most endangered animal, a mammal, is the Florida panther. Fewer than 100 individuals now survive. Other well-known Everglades mammals are water-dwellers, such as the bottlenose dolphin and the West Indian manatee, which is also endangered. NWF is actively working to educate boaters, communities, and visitors, protect and restore natural manatee habitat, and improve water quality to save this beloved species.

Both alligators and crocodiles live in the Everglades and are sometimes mistaken for each other. American alligators like deep, freshwater channels of water (called sloughs) and wet prairie, where they dig out ponds for nesting. The American crocodile lives in the coastal mangroves and Florida Bay. In addition to these reptiles, Everglades National Park alone has 27 different kinds of snakes.

The diversity of Everglades' habitats means there's also a great diversity of plants. In wetland prairies and marshes, plants range from salt-loving sawgrass and bladderwort to cypress and mangrove trees. Pine trees and hardwoods are found on "tree islands", or hardwood hammocks. The Everglades is also home to a high diversity of beautiful orchids, some of which spend their entire life up in the trees, getting their nutrients through aerial roots from the air, rain, and organic matter around them.

Threats & Conservation

Invasive Species

The Everglades is being threatened by numerous plants and animals that were introduced both on purpose and by accident. Some introduced species become a small part of the landscape, while others thrive at the expense of native plants and wildlife. When an introduced species puts additional stresses on native wildlife and threatens habitats, it's called an invasive species.

Due to the alteration of water flows and interruption in the natural pattern of wildfires, invasive species are a significant threat in the Everglades. These species from other parts of the world are taking advantage of the unbalanced conditions to establish themselves, whereas native plants and animals are struggling to survive. An invasive species is able to spread throughout new ecosystems because it doesn't have the natural predators from its native land to keep it in check. Once they've become established, these invaders are hard to stop.

About 1.7 million acres of the Everglades have been invaded by non-native plants, such as the Brazilian peppertree, Chinese privet, the broad-leaved paperbark tree or "melaleuca", and Old World climbing fern. Another harmful invasive species is the Burmese python, which likely escaped into the park when hurricanes destroyed the captive breeding facilities used to furnish pet owners. These voracious and secretive snakes have nearly wiped out most small mammals in the park, and Burmese pythons have even been known to prey on alligators. Other animal invaders that prey on, or compete with, native species include Cuban tree frogs, which eat smaller native frogs, and Nile monitors, which eat burrowing owls and crocodile eggs.

Restoring the Everglades ecosystem will help to prevent new invasions and keep established invasive species in check. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was approved in 2000. It is intended to restore, protect, and preserve the Everglades by capturing freshwater that now flows unused to the ocean and the gulf, and redirect it to areas that need it most for environmental restoration.

Restoring the Everglades will also have significant ecological benefits to places like Florida Bay and Charlotte Harbor, which depend upon freshwater from the Everglades to maintain the critical balance between fresh and saltwater necessary for healthy estuaries.

Sources
The Everglades Foundation
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan
Everglades National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
The Everglades C-43 West Basin Reservoir

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The Everglades | National Wildlife Federation

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Learn about the wildlife, people, and conservation of the Florida Everglades.

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The Everglades is the largest subtropical wilderness in North America. Thousand of different life forms call this place home. The Everglades is protected by the US government.

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Outstanding Universal Value
Brief synthesis
Everglades National Park is the largest designated sub-tropical wilderness reserve on the North American continent. Its juncture at the interface of temperate and sub-tropical America, fresh and brackish water, shallow bays and deeper coastal waters creates a complex of habitats supporting a high diversity of flora and fauna. It contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere, the largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie and the most significant breeding ground for wading birds in North America.

Criterion (viii): The Everglades is a vast, nearly flat, seabed that was submerged at the end of the last Ice Age. Its limestone substrate is one of the most active areas of modern carbonate sedimentation.

Criterion (ix): The Everglades contains vast subtropical wetlands and coastal/marine ecosystems including freshwater marshes, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rocklands, extensive mangrove forests, saltwater marshes, and seagrass ecosystems important to commercial and recreational fisheries. Complex biological processes range from basic algal associations through progressively higher species and ultimately to primary predators such as the alligator, crocodile, and Florida panther; the food chain is superbly evident and unbroken. The mixture of subtropical and temperate wildlife species is found nowhere else in the United States.

Criterion (x): Everglades National Park is a noteworthy example of viable biological processes. The exceptional variety of its water habitats has made it a sanctuary for a large number of birds and reptiles and it provides refuge for over 20 rare, endangered, and threatened species. These include the Florida panther, snail kite, alligator, crocodile, and manatee. It provides important foraging and breeding habitat for more than 400 species of birds, includes the most significant breeding grounds for wading birds in North America and is a major corridor for migration.
Integrity
Everglades National Park, at 610,670 hectares, of which 567,000 hectares were inscribed as a World Heritage site (the park has since been expanded), is at the center of a complex of federal and state (Florida) protected areas, including the Big Cypress National Preserve (295,000 hectares), Biscayne National Park (70,000 hectares), Dry Tortugas National Park (24,300 hectares), 10 National Wildlife Refuges, and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Just to the north (upstream) of the park the wetlands are protected within Florida state-managed Water Conservation Areas (350,000 hectares). To the east of the park Miami-Dade County has established an urban development boundary, preserving a buffer area of rural and agricultural lands from rapid urbanization.

Within Everglades National Park strict natural, managed natural and developed zones have been identified, and 86% of the park is in federally legislated wilderness. In keeping with the tenor of the 1934 authorizing legislation, the development of visitor facilities has progressed according to a concept of preserving the park's essential wilderness qualities and keeping developmental encroachments to a minimum. About 0.1% of the park can be considered developed. While the park contains just 20 percent of the original Everglades ecosystem, it is a good representation of the range of original habitats.

Water management manipulations have been recognized as the largest environmental threat to the park and the larger Everglades ecosystem. The water flow volumes into the northern boundary of the park are believed to have decreased by approximately 60 percent compared to estimates of pre-drainage flows. Problems with water quality and with changes in the timing and distribution of inflows have also been well documented, and these have had detrimental impacts on the native wildlife and vegetation populations. The park's legal boundaries encompass the southern end of a 4,660,000 hectares watershed that covers the southern third of the State of Florida. Water is diverted in upstream areas to provide flood protection and water supply for the expanding south Florida human population. In the northern wetlands of the park, reduced inflows have caused a loss of deep-water slough communities that are required to support healthy populations of fish and aquatic invertebrates, and wading bird populations are estimated at just 10% of pre-drainage levels. Elevated nutrients from agricultural effluents have altered the natural populations of emergent plants, leading to invasions by nutrient tolerant species, and a loss of the algal associations known as periphyton. Increased salinity in Florida Bay, due to reduced freshwater deliveries, has contributed to major changes in submerged aquatic vegetation, declines in many sportfish, and the spread of algal blooms.

The park is also facing a challenge from the introduction of numerous non-native species, including in particular the Burmese python, which has proliferated in the park. Loss of organic soils across park habitats, due to wildfires and oxidation associated with overdrainage, occurred during and after the major elements of the water management system were constructed between 1900 and 1970. Although hurricanes are a natural phenomenon in the region, intense or frequent storms can damage the already strained ecosystem. Finally, increasing ocean acidification may affect biogeochemical processes related to carbonate precipitation, particularly along the southwestern boundary between Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Protection and management requirements
Designated by the U.S. Congress in 1934 as a national park, Everglades National Park is managed under the authority of the Organic Act of August 25, 1916 which established the United States National Park Service (NPS). In addition, the park has specific enabling legislation which provides broad congressional direction regarding the primary purposes of the park. Numerous other federal laws bring additional layers of protection to the park and its resources. Day to day management is directed by the Park Superintendent.

Management goals and objectives for the property are guided through the General Management Plan and the park's Foundation Document, which provides additional guidance for planning and management. In addition, the NPS has established Management Policies which provide broader direction for all units nation-wide, including Everglades National Park.

Strong cooperative partnerships and/or formal agreements are in place with the various Federal, State, Local, and Tribal governments that manage the Everglades. The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force formally coordinates the ecosystem restoration related programs of all of these agencies. Consultation with stakeholders is a requirement of the Everglades Restoration process. The Everglades Coalition, which brings together the major environmental non-governmental stakeholders in south Florida, works to bring greater attention to environmental protection requirements.

The native plant and animal communities of southern Florida are extremely vulnerable to disturbance from human activities, and are threatened by agricultural and urban expansion, drainage, deliberate and accidental burning, water and air pollution, and the introduction of exotic species.

Management actions primarily involve the implementation of flow restoration and water quality improvement projects to be constructed in the upstream basins, and focus on re-establishment of flow in the central part of the ecosystem, including the park.

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This site at the southern tip of Florida has been called 'a river of grass flowing imperceptibly from the hinterland into the sea'. The exceptional variety of its water habitats has made it a sanctuary for a large ...

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The Everglades was created by Lake Okeechobee overflowing, this lead to the swamp like nature. Over thousands of years this lead to a balanced ecosystem. In the 1800s people thought this was just a useless swamp and dug canals trying to drain it. Over 50% of the Everglades no longer exist. The saving of the Everglades can be contributed to Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

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The Everglades is a unique treasure found in South Florida. The Everglades is the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States. It consists of 1.5 million acres of saw grass marshes, mangrove forests, and hardwood hammocks dominated by wetlands. It is home to endangered, rare, and exotic wildlife.

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Map of south Florida showing the surroundings of the Everglades. This shows the different sub areas around the Everglades.

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A birds eye view of the Everglades. This shows the natural beauty of the land.

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An alligator sunbathing on a log. Animals often do the same things as humans to relax.

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Explorers marching through the deep swamps of the Everglades. This is how we can get all the information about the Everglades.

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Some birds wandering the swampland. These are some of the thousands species of bird living in the Everglades.

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Video about some different animals that call the Everglades home. While only a few are shown many call the Everglades home.

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Video about some different animals that call the Everglades home. While only a few are shown many call the Everglades home.