Neglecting or changing protections for a federally endangered bird could help lower water levels in Lake Okeechobee right now. That’s from a March report by a committee within the South Florida Water Management District.
Florida saw the wettest winter since 1932 this year, causing the highest water level for Lake Okeechobee in a decade. Jim Moran is a district governing board member. He also chairs its Water Resources Advisory Commission, which wrote the report.
Moran recently said the Army Corps of Engineers could move more of Lake Okeechobee’s water into Everglades National Park if it were not for the “situation” with the endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow.
“I think that we need to reassess our priorities and decide if we want to save the bird's habitat at the expense of the rest of the eco system and at the expense of the estuaries and Florida bay," said Moran at a board meeting this month.
But Jaclyn Lopez with the Center for Biological Diversity said if they moved more water south, the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow would potentially cease to exist-- except maybe in a zoo somewhere.
“You'd be flooding out the areas that the sparrow needs to nest and you would see a collapse of nesting where you have a population that's already down in numbers and is under sort of a high watch scenario," said Lopez.
The SFWMD cannot make any final decisions about the species’ management, but members can still advocate for protection changes to state and federal wildlife officials.
