Everglades

A major regional climate conference this week brought together a diverse collection of people and their ideas to work together to find a sustainable way of life in the future despite some differing beliefs how to get from here to there. Dozens of community members from environmental nonprofits, academia, community groups, and local, state, and federal governments attended the day-long Southwest Florida Climate and Community Summit in Naples.

More than 3,000 members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida live on six reservations throughout the state with nearly 700 living on the Big Cypress Reservation. Yet their way of life today remains a mystery to many who visit and live in Florida.

Fifteen years ago, there was no noticeable problem with the Carolina willows at Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Slowly, the native plant species grew to the extent of being considered invasive.This particular willow, almost by itself, has expanded the definition of “invasive species” to include particularly aggressive plants that are native to Florida, not just faraway exotics.

The power of Google's cloud computing is helping the South Florida Water Management District with collection, analysis and processing of data linked to water quality improvement efforts.

The winners in this summer’s come-one, come-all Florida Python Challenge were announced Thursday in a contest that drew nearly 1,000 professional and amateur hunters from three countries and removed 231 invasive snakes from the Everglades.Burmese pythons are not native to Florida and negatively impact native species and are found in and around the Everglades ecosystem. A female Burmese python lays up to 100 eggs at a time. Since 2000, more than 17,000 wild Burmese pythons have been removed from Florida.

Let’s say that, for fun, you wanted to go into alligator-infested area, hip-deep in water where you can’t see the bottom, standing in mushy marl, in the middle of the night, and try to capture a huge snake that in turn may want to capture you. Then, the Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “2022 Florida Python Challenge®” is for you.

A rare orchid, which uses the skills of a magician to appear from nowhere and seemingly float in the air next to its host tree, is in bloom at Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. The “ghost orchid” is the largest one ever discovered, and its blossoms draw international attention among the uber-enthusiastic world of orchid lovers.

The largest Burmese python ever discovered in Florida was captured from the Everglades and brought to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida for research. The female python, weighing in at 215 pounds and 18 feet long, had 122 eggs inside of her, which is the largest egg count ever recorded for a python.

Governor Ron DeSantis announced the veto of controversial SB 2508, a Lake Okeechobee water supply bill that environmental advocates strongly opposed.

Oil exploration firms are crossing paths trying to get permits to drill test wells in the greater Florida Everglades watershed, despite accusations that one of the firms, Burnett Oil Co., has left behind miles of scars in the environmentally-sensitive land during previous efforts. Trend Exploration of North Fort Myers, another firm that wants to drill for oil in Collier County, is challenging a November decision by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to deny it a permit the company sought to drill an exploratory well to seek oil reserves. Florida Division of Administrative Hearings Judge Francine Ffolkes is scheduled to hear Trend Exploration’s appeal.