A Heron in the Everglades

 
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, chronicler and advocate for survival of the Florida Everglades, began her groundbreaking book The Everglades, River of Grass, with the statement, “There are no other Everglades in the world.” She describes the Everglades as vast, remote, and hardly known. At the time she wrote this, in the 1940′s, this was definitely true, and even today, with scientific studies, conservation efforts, and modern understanding of ecology and water systems, it still seems that the Everglades are hardly known; that is, to most people.Historically speaking, the term Everglades means the entire central region of the South Florida peninsula from Lake Okeechobee down to Florida Bay. Today, as you can see from any map, The Everglades occupies about one-third of this. Florida history and politics have combined to create the modified ecological sytem we have in Everglades National Park today, which is a reduced and controlled version of the original River of Grass.