Blogs from Everglades National Park, Florida, United States, North America - page 5

Key Largo is very close to the Everglades National Park, which is back on the Florida mainland, so we drove back there for a day. It was still very stormy and, whilst this was not a major issue directly, it did get all the mosquitoes worked-up, which was a very, very big issue. Of all the places that I have visited, I have never known the mosquitoes to be so bad. As soon as we left the car we were surrounded by swarms of the little gits and, despite covering ourselves in insect repellent, we got bitten to pieces. Talking of getting bitten, we walked along the Anhinga Trail, which is supposed to be one of the best for spotting alligators. We spotted loads and were hence a bit concerned that there didn’t seem to be ... read more

Early Friday morning, May 30th, we decided to head out from Naples Yacht Club and head toward the Shark River. The Shark River is on the lower west coast of the Everglades, so as you can imagine, there are a lot of mangroves. It is truly beautiful there. The journey would take just about all day, as it is about 60 miles south of Naples. No sooner did we leave the channel in Naples and head into the gulf, but we saw a set of large dolphins swimming literraly 2 feet along side our boat. We tried desperately to capture their picture. Not sure it went so well. Later that afternoon we saw a large thunderstorm off in the distance. We heard a little bit of thunder, but the storm never actually passed over us. We ... read more

I have been working for the University of Florida since 2006. My work focuses on exotic species, however I am constantly working on a variety of additional projects such as the one I am about to share. This past week I found myself living out of a trailer with four of my co-workers in Flamingo, Florida. Flamingo is located in the southwestern-most region of mainland Florida, and is accessible by car via the main park road of Everglades National Park. We were in Flamingo with the sole purpose of catching, measuring, and releasing American Crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus). My boss Dr. Frank Mazzotti and his research team have been conducting studies on American Crocodiles, among many other projects, in South Florida for the past 30+ years. Everything mentioned in this blog was done legally and under ... read more

Das Wochenende haben wir mit Isabel und ihrer Familie verbracht. Wir waren einkaufen in einer nahe gelegenen Shopping Mall, sind mit ihrem Vater durch die Everglades gefahren und haben ihre Familie in Naples and der Ostküste besucht. In den Evergaldes war es so richtig abenteuerlich. Wir haben Alligatoren, Otter, jede Menge Fische und so einige Moskitos und Käfer gesehen. Die Everglades waren für mich beeindruckend. Man konnte sehen, wie die Landschaft eigentlich in Florida aussieht, denn nicht ganz Florida besteht aus Miami, Disney World und Strand. Es ist ein faszinierendes Ökosystem. Naples ist eine kleinere Stadt an der Westküste Floridas, am Golf von Mexiko. Die Strände sind traumhaft, fast wie in der Karibik: weiße Sandstrände, türkises Meerwasser und Palmen die den Strand säumen. Was will man mehr? Ich wäre nie auf die Idee gekommen nach Naples ... read more

We left Big Torch Key early enough to make the start of the Tamiami Trail (the highway that runs to the west coast through the Everglades) by about 11am. The new section of bridge we being built when we drove down to the keys didn't seem to have gotten any longer since then, indicating how much time the whole highway must have taken to build! I have always wanted to go on an airboat, so I was really excited to find that there was no lack of airboat operators along the highway. We picked one that was run by the local Seminole Tribe, as we figured they'd probably know their way around. It was awesome! Continuing past the airboat tours into the Big Cypress National Park, clearly the couple of alligators we saw on the airboat ... read more