Did you know the Everglades is actually a river? The water in the Everglades moves about 100 ft. per day down into Florida Bay. The majority of Florida’s fresh water comes from the Everglades, and drainage of the wetlands and artificial control over Lake Okeechobee to expand urban development has continually threatened access to clean, fresh water for the state; the park was created to protect this resource, as well as the many plants and animals that call this place home. The Everglades contain the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere, the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America, and thirty-six threatened or protected animal species, including the Florida panther, American crocodile, and West Indian manatee. The Everglades are also significant for the number of different ecosystems it contains: freshwater sloughs and marl prairies (low-lying areas covered in water, where the nickname “River of Grass” comes from), tropical hardwood hammocks (islands of subtropical and tropical trees that rise above the sloughs), pine rockland forests, cypress and mangrove systems (Florida’s first and best defense against hurricanes, as they disperse the impact of flood waters and prevent coastal erosion), coastal lowlands (or saltwater marshes), and the marine ecosystem of Florida Bay.
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