@LionCountry Safari Park Looking to Add 10 Acres by @lonaoconnor in @pbpost #Eco @FL_Audubon

By Lona O'Connor

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 8:52 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31, 2011

Posted: 8:41 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31, 2011

Lion Country Safari is hoping to add 10 acres to enhance the walking area of the wild animal park.

According to the park's planning consultant, the 10 acres is an irregularly shaped area situated between the drive-through area of the park and the "walking safari" area.

The idea is to enhance the walkway by incorporating more natural area around it.

Lion Country, which opened in 1967 as the first cageless zoo in the country, is a popular tourist attraction, with a 4-mile driving path through what looks like an African plain with free-roaming lions, zebras, giraffes and other animals. Accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, it also contains the 55-acre "Safari World" with rides and other animal exhibits, and a 233-site campground.

Lion Country's consultant, Kerry Kilday, said he hoped to meet within the next few days with District 6 County Commissioner Jess Santamaria on the park's property to show him the planned changes.

"We're just getting a surveyor and an environmentalist to look at the land," said Kilday. "The park likes to add something new on a continuing basis and it seems like a natural way to expand."

He described the 10 acres as parcel of land sandwiched between the area where cars drive among lions and a walking area, which would be made more meandering if the changes are approved by county, state and federal authorities.

After Kilday talks to the park's owners and gives Santamaria a tour, the next stage would be to make sure that there are no wetlands or cypress stands that would be affected by alterations to the area.

"They might have to modify their existing permit," said Anita Bain, bureau chief of environmental resource permitting for the South Florida Water Management District, a required stop on the path to incorporating the 10 acres.

After Bain's department reviews the plans, they would next be sent to the Army Corps of Engineers for federal permits.

"Good luck with the permitting," said Joanne Davis, community planner for the 1000 Friends of Florida, an environmental watchdog group. "They do have some wetlands out there and the Water Management District is probably going to have quite a bit to say about that."

Davis said she had already put in calls to Santamaria and to County Commissioner Karen Marcus regarding the proposed changes.

"What would be fine would be to put a boardwalk in there without damaging the cypress."

Lion Country's owners last year gained Palm Beach County's permission to rezone some of the property's 600 acres for residences, a move opposed by residents and environmentalists as opening the door to sprawl in the rural area where the park is located.

via palmbeachpost.com

See comments from County Commissioner Jess Santamaria.

#Everglades projects face cuts; Programs for monitoring the frail @christinestaple @pbPost

by CHRISTINE STAPLETON on 10/27/11

The monitoring programs that reveal how Everglades restoration plans are working, or not, will probably be slashed by 60 percent overall, leaving gaping holes in programs that predict algal blooms, monitor pollution, provide real-time water level data and assess the survival rates of endangered species.

Gone are programs that monitor the well-being of alligators, crocodiles and pink shrimp, indicator species that reveal the health of the ecosystem.

Cuts to wading bird monitoring in Lake Okeechobee will leave scientists unable to predict the start, peak and end of nesting season -- benchmarks needed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between restoration efforts and wildlife.

"The Everglades and Lake Okeechobee are like patients in an emergency room," said Paul Gray, Audubon of Florida's science coordinator for Lake Okeechobee watershed programs. "If you have a patient in the emergency room, the last thing you want to do is shut off all the monitoring equipment."

The proposed cuts by federal, state and other agencies will be discussed today at a meeting of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.

Monitoring restoration efforts is the keystone of "adaptive management," which governs Everglades restoration projects. "Adaptive management" lets decision-makers customize projects based on what has worked and what did not.

"Adaptive management is totally dependent on data," said John Marshall, chairman of the Florida Environmental Institute.

Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, named for Marshall's uncle, covers 147,000 acres of remnant northern Everglades habitat, west of urban neighborhoods in Palm Beach County. A 56 percent cut in aerial monitoring of Everglades plant growth and water depth will eliminate vegetation sampling in the refuge.

That could cause problems in monitoring the spread of invasive plants, Marshall said. The Old World climbing fern, which smothers native vegetation, infests tens of thousands of acres there.

"Without monitoring, how can you make a decision on what is producing the best results?" Marshall said.

Also hard hit are programs that monitor oysters, barometers of estuary health, in the Lake Worth Lagoon, Loxahatchee River and St. Lucie estuary.

Oysters cannot move out of pollution's way, giving researchers valuable data on water quality. The data are also used to schedule releases of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee.

"Do you do quarterly monitoring? Would that be good enough?" said John Scarpa, research professor at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University.

He calls oysters the "canary in the coal mine" for gauging the success of restoration programs.

"We still need to do something," Scarpa said. "Is the restoration going to get done if we keep pulling the plug on certain projects?"

~christine_stapleton@pbpost.com

Copyright 2011
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

 

Charles Lee @FL_Audubon: #Everglades Headwaters proposal critical to future success @TCPalm @AllEverglades

Your Sept. 27 editorial, "New wildlife refuge and conservation area north of Lake Okeechobee may be great idea, but what are state's priorities?" regarding the Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area makes a good point when it says "Maybe it's time to prioritize the most important Everglades restoration projects — and fund and complete them, in order, before launching new projects."

That is precisely why we think moving forward with the Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area now is so important. The very first Everglades effort was the Kissimmee River Restoration, authorized by Congress almost 20 years ago in 1992. The Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area proposal helps the long-awaited Kissimmee River Restoration project succeed by assuring that land surrounding the restored river will be maintained in conservation, and provide water storage and cleansing opportunities rather than slipping toward development.

The Everglades Headwaters proposal got its start in cooperative discussions with ranchers who were genuinely concerned that the marginal economics of ranching would soon put many ranches on the auction block. Enlisting ranchers as partners and compensating them for important environmental services keeps them in business, retains land on the tax rolls, and achieves restoration benefits at far less cost than traditional public works projects. The easements and selective land purchases that will result from the Headwaters proposal will be key building blocks in reaching those goals.

The editorial included some erroneous and outdated information about the Headwaters Refuge, and other aspects of Everglades Restoration.

First, the statement that "There is no money to pay for" the Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area is not quite correct. Each year the Land and Water Conservation Fund set up by Congress receives hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from offshore oil and gas leases and royalties. In 2010, the LWCF received $450 million. These funds are available for National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area purchases if Congress allocates them to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is how most modern refuge lands have been acquired, and how the Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area can be funded.

Next, some of the editorial's information about Everglades Projects approved but not completed is outdated. For example, the 2009 Earth Magazine report cited said the Tamiami Trail Bridge Project has been "derailed by contentious politics "

Well guess what — if you go down to the Tamiami Trail today you will find that the bridge project is actually under construction and is rapidly nearing completion. Others projects nearing the finish line are the crucial C-111 restoration project and components of the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands in Miami Dade County likely to be finished by year's end. The Picayune Strand restoration project in Collier County is already producing pronounced benefits.

Yes, there have been engineering problems with some projects. The leaky Ten Mile Creek reservoir is an example. But no one ever suggested that Everglades restoration would be easy. Restoration of the Everglades is truly a pioneering project. Being a pioneer means making some mistakes and moving forward anyway through "adaptive management." When Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project in 2000, directives to engage in adaptive management were specifically included just because these situations were wisely anticipated.

One of the things learned through "adaptive management" is that taking advantage of natural, low-tech opportunities to store and clean water is often a much more cost-effective way to proceed with Everglades Restoration. These are tried and true methods that we know will work.

That is where the Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area proposal really shines. Because Everglades waters flow downstream from the Kissimmee River through Lake Okeechobee, the Headwaters proposal will deliver major benefits to the entirety of the Everglades and South Florida.

© 2011 TCPalm. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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    Comments » 2

     

    gladesman writes:

    Here is a statement inside the quotation marks pasted from the recently released Environmental Assessment for the Headwaters.

    "West Indian Manatee
    Alternative C would likely do little to protect or conserve manatees. This is mainly because the
    species is present 30 miles downstream of the southernmost Alternative C lands in the extreme lower
    Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee. There may be some small water quality benefits by the
    protection of 50,000 acres of land, and the 100,000-acre conservation easements, but there would be
    other opportunities for water quality to be degraded after it leaves Alternative C lands an before it
    reaches waters occupied by manatee"

    I was complaining to a friend about the stupidity of transferring $700,000,000 dollars of wealth from those who buy oil products at inflated prices due to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. He said I was wrong when I cited the above excerpt from the US Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) own documents to support my position. My friend said that in that excerpt they were only speaking about Manatees and not the project as a whole.
    I explained to him that the Assessment in this paragraph at page 261 is referring to the 50,000 acre Refuge and the 100,000 acres of easements specifically in the 3rd sentence of the excerpt. That IS the whole project. They were being very clear IMO.
    US Fish and Wildlife Service has documented "there may be some small water quality benefits" within the excerpt.
    I simply do not believe small water benefits is enough of a bang for $700,000,000 million BUCKS for the 1st of 4 phases.
    Oh I am sure supporters will come back and say USFWS has promised many other benefits like hunting and recreation will also result from Headwaters. The problem with that is the folks making the promises will not be there to keep them many years from now when needed. Locals in Florida know this from past experience with the Feds.

    Although I eat beef and support the cowboy (Florida Cracker/Gladesmen) culture I will not swallow this mountain oyster raw or cooked.
    I do fully understand any rancher in his right mind jumping on this bandwagon for the BIG bucks and I do not mean deer.
    The author of this article is the same interesting fellow that attempted on behalf of Audubon to covertly invite State and US Dep't. of Interior officials to his office in Tallahassee to set up the transfer the Tamiami Trail (US41) segment through Big Cypress National Preserve to the Federal government. Luckily for the traveling public his attempt failed when the coup de ta of a State highway was exposed.

    reality writes:

    Thanks, Mr. Lee. I had been so depressed to read that the Taimiami bridge project wasn't even started. Thanks for correcting that misinformation. And to gladesman: Didn't the State of FL try to sell the Taimiami road to a private company to make it a tollroad, but luckily had no takers? Do you know one of the first things Boehner did when the Repubs retook the Majority, was to make the gasoline taxes available for purposes other than roads & bridges? The water absorbed by all these easements will benefit all creatures in FL, as it sinks into the acquifer, and prevents flooding.

     

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    From the very well respected Charles Lee of Audubon...