As Everglades’ restoration presses on, a new report shows wading birds made a comeback.
The South Florida Water Management District recently released its annual wading bird report. Overall, the report shows good news.
Nesting efforts were up across the Greater Everglades ecosystem. That includes the Lake Okeechobee area. According to the report, multiple bird species in marsh areas around the Lake produced successful nests. A total of 8,461 nests were recorded.
That’s about double the number of nests compared to the year before.
Dr. Paul Gray, a scientist with Audubon Florida, said the marshes are in excellent condition. He said this latest count was the 4th highest since the count started in the 1950s.
“The reason that it was so good is that we have had kind of moderate weather the past few years,” Gray said. “We haven’t had any big hurricanes that made the lake extraordinarily deep and wiped out plant communities. We haven’t had severe droughts that pulled all the water out of the lake, so the whole lake was dry and wading birds had nowhere to go. Last year was one of those in-between years, so we had a good nesting effort in the Lake.”
Gray said last year’s heavy rainfall increased the lake’s water levels, which actually helped fish populations rebound. But, the water level rise also plagued waterways with harmful releases.
Gray said the next step for everglades restoration should be properly storing that excess water.
