"Underpasses beneath major highways—for Florida panthers along Interstate 75, for instance—have been in place for years, and the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, on the Georgia-Florida border, and Osceola National Forest, in north Florida, were connected by the purchase of a roughly ten-mile corridor in the mid-two-thousands. But Florida is the first state to draw up a map for the entire state and get behind it with real money. 'Florida is way ahead of the rest of the country,'’ Tom Hoctor, the director of the Center for Landscape Conservation Planning at the University of Florida, told me.
Writes Dexter Filkins in "Florida’s Remarkable New Wildlife Corridor from the Panhandle to the Keys/The state has created a national model for how to safeguard threatened species for generations" (The New Yorker). The new legislation was passed by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican governor (a fact that seems to mystify the New Yorker writer at least a little bit).
Here's the map:
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3 comments:
Bart writes:
"How bizarre that we conservatives actually wish to CONSERVE things of value to future generations. Even as late as the mid-'60s we were called "conservationists" rather than "environmentalists". One distinction people should be making these days is that between "active environmentalists" (who care about the environment) and "environmental activists" (who care much more about their own activism).
"Side note about the Florida panthers -- even 40 years ago the night-time speed limit on US-41 from Naples to Miami was 25 mph and the cops never really had to enforce it. Basically, you did not use that road at night, and if you did you enjoyed the slow-roll because there was a decent chance you get to see a panther. Back in about '84 I actually got to see a mama cross with her three kits in tow; decades later that memory still thrills me."
Lloyd writes:
"I worked in a road safety office. My manager went to meetings about wildlife corridors. He once said: we have trouble getting human pedestrians to stick to assigned pathways; how are we going to get wild animals to do that? I guess sometimes it works--or fear of cars and people has the effect of keeping the animals in the corridors."
Mark writes:
There's a thing called the Florida Trail, a long-haul trail like the
John Muir Trail, but lower in elevation, or the Appalachian Trail, but
shorter.
If you look at the Florida Trail, it seems like it 80 percent falls
within this wildlife corridor:
https://atlasguides.com/florida-trail-map/
Here's a female solo hiker/YouTuber who did the trail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeV4aONEPDw&list=PLXiz2lWve6AIhZWl1TQGQFebBN8QjM5Hp
Some sections involved hiking in shallow water where there were
alligators. One of her videos explains how this is not as dangerous as
it sounds, but I was't convinced.
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