A wildlife refuge of vast wild­ner­ness bor­ders urban Florida

By Quen­ton Narcisse

Before he revved the motor of his air­boat Donat­to Sur­ratt said he want­ed to take his vis­i­tors to the Arthur R. Mar­shall Lox­a­hatch­ee Nation­al Wildlife Refuge to what had been a mas­sive rook­ery, where native birds would cov­er the entire sky.

But Sur­ratt, a biol­o­gist at the refuge, demon­strat­ed when he reached the spot, that the sit­u­a­tion is now quite different.

Donat­to Sur­ratt exam­ines the soil at Lox­a­hatch­ee Refuge

Estab­lished in 1951, the Lox­a­hatch­ee refuge cov­ers over 145,000 acres of Ever­glades habi­tat, pro­vid­ing flood con­trol as well as pro­vide habi­tat for fish and wildlife pop­u­la­tion. Stretch­ing across the west­ern side of Palm Beach Coun­ty, it is one of the few rem­nants left from the orig­i­nal Everglades.

It is also far from pris­tine. Canals have dis­rupt­ed water flow, pol­lu­tants have seeped into the sys­tem and inva­sive plants have tried to spread.

“It’s gonna be hard to see a Lox­a­hatch­ee sim­i­lar to the one we’ve seen in the past,” said Melis­sa Mar­tin a senior ecol­o­gist at the Wildlife Refuge, after the tour. “So much of the sys­tem has been altered; some parts us, and oth­er parts the sys­tem. But there have been some real suc­cess­es here, so I think over­all we would say that it’s a man­age­ment work in progress.”

Many are con­vinced that man-made projects have played a neg­a­tive role in the Ever­glades, as bil­lions of gal­lons of water had been drained from Lake Okee­chobee and the Ever­glades wet­lands. Mar­tin, said that past con­struc­tion of canals have tak­en a toll on the flu­id­i­ty of the Everglades.

“Over the past 100 years, four major canals that actu­al­ly take water from Lake Okee­chobee were all con­struct­ed,” Mar­tin says. “We now have a water reg­u­la­tion sched­ule, which is how we deter­mine and man­age water with­in the refuge.”

As a wet­land ecosys­tem, Lox­a­hatch­ee pro­vides habi­tat for over 250 species of birds, and is home to the Amer­i­can alli­ga­tor as well as the endan­gered Ever­glades snail kite.

Alli­ga­tors roam through­out the Ever­glades — Pho­to by Olivia Balsinger

Offi­cials at the refuge not­ed that a recent drought has played a crit­i­cal role in the near-extinc­tion of some refuge plants, and reduced the num­ber of birds present. Many off­spring died because small­er pools of water dried out before the young were old enough to leave the nest.

Despite’s Loxahatchee’s prob­lems, it still draws 280,000 vis­i­tors annu­al­ly, includ­ing numer­ous school tours led by the refuge’s staff. Activ­i­ties such as boat­ing, canoe­ing and kayak­ing are oth­er alter­na­tives offered by the refuge.

The refuge doesn’t offer air­boat rides as they were deemed to be an “incom­pat­i­ble” use of the refuge.

They are offered near­by at Water Con­ser­va­tion Area 2. For a fee of about $25 pas­sen­gers can expe­ri­ence a two-hour ride across a por­tion of the Ever­glades while enjoy­ing the exot­ic scenery, includ­ing alli­ga­tors, and up to 350 native and migra­to­ry bird species .

The Lox­a­hatch­ee refuge has days ded­i­cat­ed to com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment, such as Ever­glades Day on the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of Feb­ru­ary, and Inter­na­tion­al Migra­to­ry Bird Day in May.

Whether one hikes a por­tion of the refuge or views it by boat, it would lit­er­al­ly takes days to see every­thing that Lox­a­hatch­ee has to offer.