Safety in the Everglades

July 11, 2016 by

safety The Everglades is a beautiful, vast place that happens to be a National Park for people to experience in many different ways, year round. The “River of Grass” is full of all sorts of plant life, animal life, and landscapes; it also experiences lots of different weather. Being a park in nature, there’s a lot of unpredictable things that can happen, like bad weather, flooding, area restrictions, etc. When visiting the Everglades, it’s best to familiarize yourself with some of the park’s safety precautions and rules, so you can get the most out of your visit. Whether you’re taking an airboat tour, walking a trail, or going on a picnic, you should keep safety in mind.

Below, we’ve shared some of the Everglades National Park’s safety precautions, tips, and rules no matter what time of year you visit the area.

  1. Be mindful of the weather. It can get very hot and humid in the Everglades during the summer months. Make sure you and your group are all aware of the temperatures the day you’re visiting and prepare appropriately. Wear sunscreen, bring water, and wear proper clothing.
  2. Children should be supervised. The trails are surrounded by wilderness, so there are animals roaming freely all in the grasses and vegetation. For their safety and yours, make sure they stick to the trail with you.
  3. Pets are not allowed on the trails.
  4. Feeding wildlife of any kind is not allowed and is illegal. Over time, animals will become aggressive if they’re being fed by humans in their wild habitat.
  5. Be aware of vultures. Vultures live in the area and are federally protected. They have been known to damage the windshields, sun roofs, and windshield wipers of cars and other vehicles. The Park suggests that visitors avoid parking near groups of vultures, park in full sun, put a car cover over the car, cover any exposed runner with a towel or wet sheet, use loud noises to spook the vultures off the car or vehicle, and notify a ranger if one is on your car and it won’t leave.
  6. Leave the wildlife alone. If you harm, touch, or get in the way of the animals or birds, you can get in big trouble; it is illegal to bother the animals in any way.
  7. Attend to fires at all times
  8. Do not tie anything or attach anything to trees.
  9. Do not leave garbage out – this can attract wildlife.
  10. It can get very buggy in the Everglades, and mosquitos can come in droves during the wet season. The Park suggests on apply insect repellant before walking on any of the trails; the park also sells repellant at all stores in the Park. Light-colored, longsleeve shirts and pants are the best clothing to keep mosquitos from biting you. Also, it’s best to stick to walking on paved areas if you want to stay away from bugs as much as possible.

Stay Safe in the Everglades

These are just a few tips and safety rules that visitors should keep in mind and follow while visiting the Everglades. The trip will be much more enjoyable if you prepare for the trip properly, and don’t bother the animals of environment in any way. Riding on an airboat is a safe way to explore the Everglades. Captain Mitch has many years of experience navigating through the wetland. To book a trip for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, call 800-368-0065 or click here.

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The Everglades Mink

June 16, 2016 by

minkThe Everglades is home to the Everglades Mink, hence the name! This small member of the weasel family is one of three types of minks found in Florida. The Everglades Mink happens to be the only one that lives in south Florida. They are semi-aquatic, carnivorous and also related to otters, ferrets, badgers, and martens.

An Everglades Mink has chocolate brown fur, a small head and tiny black eyes and ears. Its legs are short, it has a pointed muzzle, five partially webbed toes on each food but it has a long bushy tail. A mink’s feet help them swim easily in water while they search for food. A mink also releases an unpleasant-smelling liquid, similar to a skunks; it does this as a warning and also a marker for other minks to know of its presence. It doesn’t spray this liquid, unlike s skunk, but does release it out of fear. The mix will also squeal, snarl, and hiss if it is frightened. This mink can grow up to 25 inches long.

Like stated before, its home is in the Everglades, also including shallow freshwater marshes and swamps of the Fakahatchee Strand, Big Cypress Swamp.

Despite their small size, Everglade minks are known to grab prey larger than themselves. They are nocturnal and hunt for food on land and in the water; they enjoy eating small mammals, snakes, fish, and insects.

Usually, a mink will be found by itself; unless, it’s a mother raising its young. A female mink can give birth to three to six kits during the spring time. The kits are born hairless, but open their eyes and start growing hair around three weeks. These babies usually stay around the mother until the fall. Females stay close to the den, while male roam twice as far and visit other dens. Dens are usually found in a hollow log, or under tree roots.

The Everglades mink is a threatened special by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In recent years, this mink has only been spotted in shallow freshwater marshes and swamps of the Everglades Park.

Spot the Mink
Although it usually comes out at night, there’s a chance you may still see an Everglades mink while exploring the Everglades as it heads home to its den. The best way to see the variety of wildlife and vegetation in the Everglades is a ride through the Everglades on an airboat with Captain Mitch. Airboat tours in Everglades give visitors an up-close-and-personal view of the mink’s habitat. Call Captain Mitch’s Airboat Tours at 239-695-3377 or click here to book a trip today!

 

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The Everglades’ New Designation

June 10, 2016 by

evergladesEverglades restoration is a hot topic right now, and we’d like to share as much news and updates about progress as we can. Why? Well without the beautiful Everglades, there would be no airboat tours, of course, never mind the fact that hundreds of birds, animals, and plants could possibly disappear from the Earth forever. With that said, the North American Coastal Plain, which includes the Everglades, was recently declared by the Conservation International of the North Atlantic Coastal Plain (NACP) as a Global Hotspot – it is number 36.

This designation will help the ecosystems in Florida, including the Everglades, tremendously. The North American Coastal Plain stretches from northern Massachusetts all the way down to the Florida Keys. Right now, the Everglades is a US National Park, a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve and a RAMSAR Convention Wetland of International Importance. Although it already has all of this global recognition of being such a special place, this recognition calls even more attention to how threatened the wetlands truly are.

To be considered a biodiversity hotspot, an area has to support more than 1,500 endemic vascular plans, while also experiencing more than 70 percent habitat loss. This description fits the Everglades as it is known for its large biodiversity and shrinking habitats due to damming and climate change. It is unclear why it has taken so long to receive this distinction but Evelyn Gaiser, executive director of the School of Environment, Arts, and Society, thinks that because it is relatively young ecosystem, the Everglades’ true diversity has been unrecognized until now. The area developed around 4,000 years ago.

She states, “Protection and restoration of the Everglades is dependent on our ability to predict and influence its future as it responds to these changes. It also depends on the level to which citizens understand and value it, and engage in fostering a viable future for its inhabitants and functions”

This new status helps the Everglades receive recognition as a threated area beyond the state of Florida. All of the world understands that this place is a rare wetland area on the Earth that is home to many unique and endangered living organisms and fresh water.

Enjoy the Everglades

We live in a world that is now working to protect the Everglades. Keeping the Everglades alive and well will ensure so much wildlife can flourish for years to come, while us humans can enjoy the area for pleasure and scientific purposes. Do you want to explore the Everglades firsthand? Take a trip to the Everglades for your chance to see a diverse ecosystem like no other. Airboat tours of the Everglades give visitors an up-close-and-personal view of the country’s treasure. Call Captain Mitch’s Airboat Tours at 239-695-3377 or click here to book a trip today!

 

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The Everglades Snail Kite

June 3, 2016 by

snail kite The Snail Kite (formerly known as the Everglades Snail Kite) was listed as endangered in 1967. Fast forward 49 years, this bird is still on the federal endangered species list and state regulators are being accused of not protecting the species properly. In 2000, there were 3,400 kites around and by 2008 there were only 700.

The snail kite is known for its slender, curved bill. This bill is able to extract the apple snail from its shell for the bird to eat. The snail kite is a medium-sized brown/gray raptor that flies slow with its head tilted down often while it looks for prey. They use their feet to capture the snails that are right below the surface of the water.

This raptor lives along freshwater marshes and manmade lakes. They prefer non-dense vegetation areas, because the openness allows them to easily search for the apple snails. Snail kites are considered nomadic in Florida because they move depending on water depths, food availability, hydroperiod, and other changes in the habitat.

The biggest threat to the snail kite is the loss of the wetlands in Florida. When sewage is disposed through septic tanks and runs off into the water and land, the water quality lowers and exotic and invasive plants grow heavily and reduce visibility of the apple snails in the water. In order to keep the snail kite around, the area’s water stages in lakes in canals to be regulated to certain vegetation is there for the bird’s habitat to exist.

In February, a federal official accused state regulators of not properly protecting the snail kite. In January, heavy rainfall occurred in Florida and was overfilling Lake Okeechobee; the U.S. Army Corps released lots of water from the lake which flowed into estuaries. This flowing of water changed the water level in many areas of the state too quickly, which in turn disrupted the nesting sites of the snail kite. If their nests get swept away from the higher levels of water, they are unable to reproduce. This destruction was caused by an act (the dumping of the water) which was illegally done, because no permit was obtained for this flood control act.

Despite the snail kite’s habitat being completely fragile and vulnerable, numbers have been slowly increase in recent years.

Spot the Snail Kite

This majestic creature has been in trouble for decades but continues to hold on. The snail kite’s specific diet of mainly apple snails makes it hard for the bird to thrive in different areas, since it’s dependent on a watershed with a certain water quality and vegetation.  Although this bird is still around, there’s always the chance it could disappear in the years to come. Book an airboat tour today through the snail kite’s habitat within the Everglades to try and catch a glimpse of this precious, endangered bird. To book a tour, contact Captain Mitch’s Airboat Tours at 239-695-3377 or click here.

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The Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow

May 27, 2016 by

Cape Sable seaside sparrowThis winter has not been good for many birds in the Everglades, including the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. Its habitat has been threatened by substantial rain and water that was drained from Lake Okeechobee. For the sparrow’s nesting area, water levels were too high. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Everglades Program knew what would happen once the water was released, but they never anticipated it being as bad as it turned out. Now, officials and biologists are concerned about this bird and its future.

Maintaining an ideal water level for this bird, and many other birds, is no easy task. Between April and July, the sparrow builds its nests a mere six inches off the ground, so it needs a water level high enough to keep it away from predators and low enough so the nest doesn’t wash away. It is believed more water could be moved into the Everglades if it wasn’t for the sparrow. This bird is actually nicknamed the “Goldilocks bird” because its habitat conditions have to be “just right” for it to survive. In 1981, there were an estimated 6,656 Cape Sable seaside sparrows in the Everglades, but by 2002 there were only around 2,624 of the birds around.

The sparrow lives in six different locations of the Everglades, usually rocky grass prairies with muhly grass; the Everglades is the only ecosystem the bird exists in.  In these short-hyrdoperiod prairies, there is somewhat dense, clumped grasses with open space for the sparrows to move around. The sparrows’ nests are cup-shaped, and the bird itself is only 5 inches long. The sparrow is a dark olive gray in color with a brown back and light gray with dark olive color lines on the sides; there are small patches of yellow feathers around the eyes and the bend of the wings. These birds feed on grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles, spiders, and seeds from the grass. They are known to have short-range movements and do travel far away from their nesting areas outside of the breeding season. A sparrow usually only lives to the age of four.

According to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, the condition of the sparrow is so dire and they’re trying to do anything they can to save them, even if this means giving one pair of sparrows the opportunity to breed. They believe this year will be the worst breed year they’ve seen for the sparrow in decades.

Spot the Sparrow

The Capble Sable seaside sparrow is disappearing. A change in a mere couple of centimeters of water in the sparrow’s habitat can determine whether or not the birds can or will breed. Scientists and officals are continuing to work on plans that will protect the bird and its environment without causing too many problems elsewhere. If you’d like an opportunity to see a sparrow fly by, an airboat tour may be your only chance. Airboats can bring you all around the Everglades to places you cannot get to by foot. To explore the Everglades, contact Captain Mitch’s Airboat Tours here.

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Trails of the Everglades

May 19, 2016 by

trailsThe Everglades is a beautifully mysterious place to visit. So, why not experience it up-close-and-personal? The Everglades National Park allows visitors to explore their surroundings with several hiking and bike trails winding throughout the wetlands.

The Park asks that visitors bring plenty of water with them and to pay attention to the weather forecast. If visitors hear thunder, the Park suggests people take cover in a building or vehicle. Being such a warm climate, there will be lots of insects around and visitors should prepare themselves. Pets are not allowed on any of the Park’s trails.

Below is a list of a few trails within the Park that allows people to explore the flora and fauna of the area. These trails can be walked through but there may be some vegetation on the trail.

The following trails are currently not being maintained because there are endangered species nearby.

Coastal Prairie Trail – This trail is 11.2 miles long. This trail isn’t recommended due to its exposure to mosquitos and sun. The marl prairie is a breeding ground for the mosquitos and can be very muddy. It can be a very tiring walk. This trail is a critical habitat for the Cape Sable thoroughwort.

Snake Bight – Snake Bite is a 7.6-mile loop. This moderately-difficult trail leads from the forest to the shoreline of the Florida Bay. Visitors may spot crocodiles, flamingos (in December), mosquitos, and pythons and anacondas. People can walk and/or bike this trail. This trail is very buggy. This trail is considered a critical habitat for the Cable Sable thoroughwort.

Christian Point Trail – This trail is considered challenging; it leads people deep into a mangrove forest along the Florida Bay. After the forest, the trail will lead people to a small prairie and opens up later into a large mark prairie. This trail is a critical habitat for Cape Sable thoroughwort. It is 4.2 miles round trip. It can be very buggy on this specific trail being surrounded by heavy vegetation.

Other Non-Maintained Trails:
Rowdy Bend
Bear Lake
LPK Bike Trail

These trails are maintained:

Anhinga Trail – This trail is an easy trip and is .8 of a mile long. It’s close to the Park entrance, which is why most visitors travel on this trail. Wildlife is easily spotted along this trail, especially alligators and birds. People can look into the vegetation and see much of the wildlife on several observation decks throughout the trail.

Bayshore Loop – Bayshore Loop is an easy to moderate level trail that is 1.3 miles long. This trail is known to be aggressively buggy. This loop brings visitors along the edge of the Florida Bay through the coastal prairie habitat. It passes through the original fishing village of Flamingo, a relic stands where this place used to be. It’s a great bird-watching trail.

Pa-Hay-Okee Boardwalk – The Boardwalk is an easy .2 loop that leads visitors through the “River of Grass” (Pa-Hay-Okee) within the Park for a close look at the area. It leads people to an observation tower.

Other Maintained Trails:
Bear Lake Trail
Bobcat Boardwalk
Gumbo Limbo Trail
Guy Bradley Trail
Mahogany Hammock Trail
Old Ingraham Highway
Otter Cave Hammock Trail
Pinelands Ecotone
West Lake Mangrove Trail

Explore The Everglades Further

These trails offer beautiful views to those within while fully immersing them in the mystical wetlands. For a different look at the Everglades, an airboat tour can bring you around areas of the Everglades that these trails do not reach. Airboats are great especially when your feet get tired from all the walking! To schedule an airboat trip when you’re visiting the Everglades, call Captain Mitch’s Airboat Tours at 239-695-3377 or click here.

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Laurel Wilt Disease

April 7, 2016 by

The Everglades is a distressed ecosystem. Usually, climate change, pollution, and human development come to mind when the topic of a hurting wetland comes up. Sadly, the Everglades are currently facing another threat to its future: a fungus.  This fungus goes by the name Laurel Wilt, and it is a tree disease that showed up in the Everglades in 2011.

Laurel Wilt is one of the most invasive tree diseases in North America. According to a conference on the disease held at the University of Florida, the disease has killed hundreds of millions of trees, which in turn has affected and damaged the surrounding ecosystems. Once infected, a tree can die within a couple of weeks; in that same forest, any tree less than three inches in diameter will be dead in under four years.

The fungus is introduced to the trees through an Asian insect called the redbay ambrosia beetle. The trees cannot handle this nonnative fungus. These beetles are extremely small, measuring at only 1/16 of an inch. The fungus this beetle carries is pathogenic. After they burrow into the tree, the fungus enters the wood. A female beetle can reproduce on the tree without needing the male; the offspring leave the tree to attack surrounding trees. Trees will have wilted stems and leaves and have a dark stained color underneath their bark. It only takes one female beetle to kill a tree. Since 2011, the disease has killed swamp bay trees across more than 330,000 acres of the Everglades.

Only plants in the Laurel family are affected by the disease. One of the biggest plants affect by the Laurel Wilt are avocados. In 2015, nearly, 9000 avocado trees were killed by the disease. Farmers have been spraying pesticides to control the beetle; however, these sprays cannot be used in the Everglades or other wild areas. Redbay trees across Florida, and five other states, have also been affected.

When a tree and surrounding trees die, a space opens within the canopy. With dead trees and open canopies, the ecosystem is now vulnerable to invasive plants that have caused a drop in mammal populations in the Everglades. Such invasive plants include: melaleuca fern, Australian pine, and Brazilian pepper.

Fighting Laurel Wilt Disease
There is currently no effective way to control or stop these beetles and disease. Chemicals can be used to kill ambrosia beetles once they’re confirmed living on a farm, but this isn’t the case for the Everglades. The South Florida Water Management District oversees restoration in the Everglades and is improving its monitoring and maintenance of any affected areas in the wetland. Invasive plants and insects are a big problem in the Everglades, and officials are trying to find the best ways to fight them.

Visit the Everglades
The Everglades are a fragile ecosystem; this wetland has been up against years of damage from climate change, rising sea levels, and development from humans. With other invasive threats, the Everglades are continuing to be in a battle for its own survival. By being educated on the topic and taking preventative measures, there are ways to preserve the Everglades.

The best way to experience the Everglades, while its still around, is by airboat. Captain Mitch’s Airboat Tours take you all around the beautiful wetland. To schedule your airboat tour, click here or call 239-695-3377.

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Everglades Orchids: Beauty in the Wetland

March 4, 2016 by

Ghost OrchidOrchids are quite an exotic flower, so it’s no surprise that they can be found in one of the most mystical places in the world: The Everglades. Seeing these Everglades orchids is like finding beauty in an unexpected place, since the area widely known for its green and swampy colorings. According to the National Park Service, the diversity of orchids in the Everglades is higher than any other National Park in the United States.

Orchids have the largest variety within their family of flowers, and they all vary in color and size. They are also a really old species of plant; there are fossils of orchids and orchid pollen showing that they have existed on the planet for around 100 million years.  It is believed that many of the Everglades orchids originated from the West Indies from winds blowing seeds.

Types Everglades Orchids

Thirty-nine orchid species live in the Everglades. All of them have different months in which they bloom. Some types include: grass pink orchid (Calopogon tuberosus), longclaw orchid (Eltroplectis calcarata), butterfly orchid (Encyclia tampensis), clamshell orchid (Prosthechea cochleata var. triandra) and the ghost orchid (Polyriihiza lindenii).

The longclaw orchid is a tropical species; it is very small and its flower is white in color with green and brown-spotted leaves. It is found often alongside streams. The butterfly orchid sprouts a bunch of small, yellow-petal flowers off from grass-like, green leaves; they are often found in trees. The grass pink orchid has small flower that range in color from white to pink or a mix of both with a few green grass-like leaves on each plant; each plant can have up to 10 flowers on it. The clamshell orchid has a dark-colored flower with white and yellow colors in the inside of flower. Underneath the flower, thin, green tepals hang down. The ghost orchid is a leafless orchid with one, somewhat large white flower.

Orchid Habitats

Where can these colorful orchids be found? Being a warm and humid climate, many of the orchid species live on trees in the Everglades. These orchids are considered to be epiphytic plants that take nutrients from the air, rain and other debris around it; they do not harm the plant they are growing on. Orchids can be found on the trunks of pop ash, live oak, royal palm, cypress pond apple trees, and wet prairies and roadsides.

Saving the Orchids

Due to climate change and human interference, the Everglades have been suffering. Rising sea levels, years of dredging, population increases and development have compromised the environment and size of the Everglades.  Not only is their habitat decreasing in size, but Everglades orchids have been threatened by visitors in the park for quite some time. For many years, collectors and tourists would pick the plants for a collection or to sell, according to the National Park Service. The orchids were overharvested. The Park Service says it is believed at least three orchid species became extinct within the park due to over picking; rare species were often chosen to bring home for their value. Now, the collection of orchids, and all plant and wildlife, in the Everglades is prohibited. Several biologists have made it their mission now to save endangered orchids, like the cigar orchid. By bringing seeds of the plant to a greenhouse and transporting plants, biologists are helping restore the in the wetland area.

Seeing the Everglades Orchids

For a chance at spotting some of rare and stunning Everglades orchids, an airboat tour is a great way to travel around different plant life that the orchids can be growing on. The airboats give people the chance to enter parts of the Everglades not accessibly by foot. To check out the orchids and hundreds of other plants in the Everglades, book an airboat ride today!

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What is Restoration Ecology?

June 3, 2015 by
restoration ecology

Showing love for planet Earth.

Restoration ecology is a special field of science, having been first classified in the 1980’s, which has become an integral part of the conservation and restoration efforts in such places as the Florida Everglades. But what is restoration ecology?

The official definition of restoration ecology as defined by the Society for Ecological Restoration is the “intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity and sustainability.” While this definition might seem somewhat vague or ambiguous, it’s much easier to understand when you consider specific examples of restoration ecology: erosion control, reforestation, removal of invasive species, reintroduction of native species, revegetation of damaged areas, and habitat restoration for endangered species. Essentially, restoration ecology is any action taken with the intention of restoring an ecological system to its original and most adequate form, providing the best possible environment for native species that is possible given the current circumstances.

The practice of restoration ecology has actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, practiced by laypeople who had no specialization or expertise in the field, but who simply loved the land around them and believed they were doing the right thing in trying to preserve it. The term “restoration ecology” was officially coined in the 1980’s by two professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, John Aber and William Jordan, who also organized and held the first official meetings on the topic at the same University. Restoration ecology has greatly expanded as a field in the few decades since, becoming its own scientific discipline and inspiring one renowned biologist, E.O. Wells, to make a bold statement explaining that he feels the next century will “be the era of restoration in ecology.”

If Wells is right, then it means big things for many of the ecosystems around the world that are currently suffering, including the Florida Everglades. However, even amongst supporters of restoration ecology, there are generally two types. There are those people who have the belief that humans have a responsibility to all other living things, both plants and animals, and that we have an obligation to protect all species and their habitats independent of the effects that it has on us as a species. On the other hand, there are those who support restoration ecology but look at it from the viewpoint of what benefits are offered to us – such people look at healthy ecosystems instead as the food, fuel, water, and lumber they provide to humans. However one chooses to look at it, it’s clear that restoration ecology is a field that looks upon improving the environments that it studies, which could hardly be considered a bad thing in anyone’s book.

To truly understand why the field of restoration ecology is so important, it’s vital to visit places like South Florida and experience an Everglades tour firsthand. From an airboat tour, you’ll observe areas of the Everglades that not every average Florida tourist gets to see, and who knows – after a trip through the Florida Everglades, you may just be inspired to dive into the field of restoration ecology yourself.

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Everglades National Park: An Overview

May 12, 2015 by
Everglades National Park

Everglades National Park.

Among the 59 national parks located in the United States, the Florida Everglades is perhaps one of the most well known. Everglades National Park was established to protect the southern 20% of what was considered the original Everglades, and today is the largest tropical wilderness located in the United States. Incredibly popular among tourists to Florida from all over the world, Everglades National Park boasts an average of over a million visitors each year.

Unlike most national parks in the United States, which were generally established in order to preserve unique geographic features, such as mountains and coral reefs, Everglades National Park was the very first to be established in order to preserve a fragile ecosystem. Unfortunately, human activity has caused severe damage throughout the Everglades, and although the park was officially established in 1934 to try and protect the quickly vanishing wilderness, the park’s further restoration and protection remains a hot topic of debate in Florida politics, even today.

Today, Everglades National Park is home to 36 threatened and protected species, as well as more than:

  • 350 species of bird
  • 300 species of fish
  • 50 species of reptile
  • 40 species of mammal

Because Everglades National Park contains a mix of freshwater and saltwater, an extremely vast and varied population of both plants and animals have made their home here. With one of the largest mangrove ecosystems in the entire world, the area is also considered one of the largest breeding grounds for tropical wading birds in all of North America. This statistic is especially amazing when considering that the plume hunting craze of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s almost wiped out all the birds in the area completely, with some estimates as high as a 95% shore bird population loss.

Everglades National Park is most popular for visitors between the months of December and March, which is considered the dry season throughout southern Florida. Camping is available year round and there are several walking trails available at varying levels of difficulty, though some are impassable depending on water levels during specific times of year or after heavy rainfall. While the park hosts four conveniently located visitor centers for information, food, and canoe/kayak rentals, the park can also be accessed from numerous trails along nearby state roads. Despite the numerous access points surrounding the park, there are still many areas that are only accessible by boat.

A large portion of the areas located within the park are considered no-wake zones, in order to protect fragile wildlife, and especially manatees, from even low-powered motorboats. Because much of the Everglades is unnavigable by powerboat anyway, airboat tours tend to be one of the more common modes of transportation when traveling through the Everglades. Because the majority of an airboat’s construction sits above the water, airboat rides have proved useful when skimming across the shallows of the Everglades at high speeds, accessing areas that couldn’t possibly be safely accessed any other way. To experience the Everglades on an airboat for yourself this summer, schedule an airboat ride with Captain Mitch and his crew today!

Filed Under: Everglades Airboat Rides, Everglades Airboat Tours, Everglades History, Everglades News Tagged With: , , , ,
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