Walk through the Cypress Swamps of the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park!
Duration
3 Hours
About
Our most popular walking tour takes us through the cypress swamps of the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. The Fakahatchee Strand is known as "the Amazon of North America." The Everglades is made up of a variety of habitats: sawgrass marshes; marl prairies; pinelands; hardwood hammocks; cypress swamps, sloughs and domes; mangrove forests; and marine estuaries. It is one of the very unique and special places on our planet.
For thousands of years of moving, clean freshwater has carved away in this spectacular environment. The Park is a 75,000-acre wilderness area and is approximately twenty miles long by five miles wide. A protective canopy of bald cypress trees covers a slow-moving shallow "river" or "slough" running north to south. The canopy and water below create a unique "humidity-controlled" environment that neither gets too cold in the winter or too warm in the summer. Flora and fauna flourish and the Strand is home to rare and endangered tropical plant species. It contains the richest diversity of native epiphytic orchid and bromeliad species in North America (44 and 14 respectively) as well as the largest groves of native royal palms.
Take a three-hour excursion with one of our knowledgeable (and passionate) naturalists to explore the many wonders of these environments. Discuss the natural history of the Everglades, as well as the last 120 years of human impact to the ecosystem, and the current Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) - the largest restoration project our planet has known.
Information: 239-695-3633