Biodiversity, Habitats & Ecosystems
Netted Paw Paw: Photo by Paul Strauss
Prickly Pear Cactus: Photo by Paul Strauss
Lakela’s Mint: Only found in St. Lucie County. Photo by Paul Strauss
Looking back more than five decades we see that the Founders were prescient in their mission statement. They pledged:
To protect the water, soil, air, native flora and fauna, upon which the earth’s creatures depend for survival.
Most of today’s environmental language had yet to be coined, and awaited a revolution in the new sciences of ecology and the new perspective of the earth as a single living system, comprised of countless interacting ecosystems, species, and life cycles.
Our Founders were already ahead of the curve, however. Their ecoliteracy derived from their love of the local native Florida land and waterscapes, and their intimate interactions with what then was an abundance of fascinating flora and fauna.
As is true for indigenous peoples, our Founders great insight was that not only is there a connection between and within species and their environments but that we all depend upon a healthy, functioning ecosystem for our survival. Thus, CASLC’s mission remains deeply relevant to our times.
Today we understand biodiversity to describe the varied species that live within specific habitats (or the place of residence either part- or full-time) that exist within specific larger ecosystems. The ecosystem derives its structure and function, in part, from the interactions between the species. Often, the more species interactions the stronger and more resilient the ecosystem. The more mature the ecosystem, with its species and interactions stable, the more it can sequester carbon and otherwise prove resilient in the face of climate change.
Tropical gymnosperm coontie (Z. floridana) are the only native larval host plant host for the Atala Butterflies. Photo by Ken Gioeli, UF/IFAS.
The Atala Butterfly: An inspiring example of benefits of saving ecosystems and habitats
When we helped create the Fort Pierce Inlet State Park we protected part of a coastal ecosystem, which included Countie habitat. The ancient tropical gymnosperm coontie (Z. floridana) are the only native larval host plant host for the Atala Butterflies. After early settlers overharvested the plant for its cones, followed by widespread destruction of its habitat, Atala butterflies were thought to be extinct. Word is they re-appeared off of Miami and very, very slowly emerged in other suitable habitats. In 2017, Ken Gioeli, Extension Agent for UF/IFAS, sent word to come witness the Atalas emerging from their pupae on the coonties at the Park. What a joy! Gioeli explains that the coastal ecosystem habitat seems to provide the best conditions for the Atalas to thrive as they once did.
Ken Gioeli, UF/IFAS (Ret.)
On the Vanguard of Species Protection
Our Founders were ahead of their time in advocating for species in trouble in our area during the 1970s and 1980s
- Save the Trees: CASLC lobbied for a SLC Tree Protection Ordinance, which became part of St. Lucy County’s Comp Plan.
Live Oak Tree: Photo by Paul Strauss
- Protect Fish Populations in Florida coastal waters: CASLC was a determinative factor in local campaign for the No-gill Netting Amendment, which easily passed in the county as well as statewide by a large majority of voters.
- Protect Sea Turtle Nesting and Eggs on the Beaches. Originally founded to relocate threatened sea turtle eggs, “The Turtle Mothers” became state certified, and relocated 28,000 eggs. CASLC then helped write the award-winning county sea turtle protection ordinance: beachfront lights were to be turned off during nesting season. The next governmental action created an in-season patrol program to ensure hatchling success in their own nests.
- Protect Essential Fish Habitat in the Fort Pierce Inlet and Port: CASLC joined with the Waterfront Council, Audubon SLC, the Smithsonian and Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute to successfully lobby against deepening the Inlet and Port, and conversion to cargo port industry.
CASLC Kayaking at Fort Pierce Inlet State Park: Photo by John Reed
Species Surveys: What’s There to Be Protected
It’s always a thrill to hunt for native flora and fauna in their native habitats. We’re drawn to advocate for conservation those areas that retain their native Florida characteristics and healthy habitat function. The surveys revealing substantive native flora and fauna serve as key rationales that can be used to request legally protective status for these areas. We’ve conducted numerous tours both on land and on water. Species surveys available upon request.
- Jane Murray Brooks Park: Our first extensive species survey was conducted by Founder Jane Brooks, who used the results in her appeal to save this 143-acre upland area on the riverside of A1A in Fort Pierce. The St. Lucie County Commissioners named the park in her honor.
- Mariposa Cane Slough Preserve: Port St. Lucie. Organized by CASLC with substantive assistance from members of the Native Plant society, Audubon, Master Naturalists, and other Native Florida environmental enthusiasts. Documented were 94 native plants, 5 species of fungi, 7 species of insects (including 4 butterfly species), 6 reptiles, 15 + species of birds like hawks and woodpeckers, and 4 mammals including bobcat.
Pictured below are some of the diverse life here in St. Lucie County. Click an image to view full screen.
John Bradford made a short, and musical fun YouTube video, “Plants of the Mariposa Preserve.”
Our survey found an inundation of the highly invasive ardesia in the Preserve. Retired St.Lucie County urban forester, Steve Fousek, led groups of volunteers to remove the stands, in more than a dozen workdays.
Gary Warden of Port St. Lucie uses a machete to chop down a section of the exotic plant shoebutton ardisa that has frown at Mariposa Cane Slough Preserve: Photo from Treasure Coast Newspapers
- Halpatiokee Buffer Preserve State Park in Port St. Lucie. In making the case for preserving this “ecological gem,” we organized several species surveys. Our last detailed plant survey (conducted by John Bradford and Diane Goldberg) documented 142 plant species in Halpatiokee Trails alone. Additionally, ecologist D. Greg Braun conducted an onsite investigation and wrote a comprehensive ecological analysis to assist in one of the legal battles to save our Preserve, including discussion of rare, threatened, or endangered plant species.
- Evans Creek, a natural tributary of the North Fork of the St. Lucie River, was part of the protected area of the Halpatiokee Buffer Preserve. It continues to meander on its original path, which now includes under the Crosstown Parkway Bridge. Always abundant with riverine wildlife such as river otters, manatees, alligators, tarpon and snook, it hosted increasingly rate, threatened or endangered fish species. The Bigmouth Sleeper, Gobiomorus dormitor, fish species that lost its critical nursery habitat, are no longer seen here. Much of the supportive floodplain and wetland area was destroyed or altered due to the bridge. We pay tribute to it here. This historical information could guide restoration. efforts in the future.
Bigmouth Sleeper, Gobiomorus dormitor
A wild caught female opossum pipefish (Microphis brachyurus lineatus).
- Southeastern Indian River Lagoon in St. Lucie County
- Island Willow and Island Garden developments impacting mangrove tidal wetlands and sea grass beds and Essential Fish Habitat were rejected. Submitted research and science-based letters to FDEP.
- Riverwatch Conservation Easement protects small and rare habitat in the area for Essential Fish Habitat, tidal mangroves, manatees mating and birthing area, and birds. The CE forbids motorized craft and dredging. Submitted numerous research and science-based letters to FDEP. An ongoing multi-year advocacy effort, includes creating a bicounty alliance, meetings with officials, online petition, press coverage, and rally.
Manatees
- North American Right Whale migrates through our county’s coastal waters and births nearby. At the request of PEW Charitable Trust, we submitted a letter to NOAA to protect this critically endangered species.
- Citizen’s Right to Plant Native Flora in Her Yard. Master Naturalist and environmental activist (Audubon and CASLC), Diane Goldberg, was ordered to appear in front of a magistrate for the city of Port St. Lucie for an alleged code violation. Her purposeful planting of native plants was not only to encourage a diversity of native plants to take root in her yard but also to attract native fauna, in effect, establishing a mini-ecosystem. CASLC submitted a letter of support and sent out an Action Alert to our members. Diane successfully argued her own case, a win for all citizens in Port St. Lucie.
CASLC Kayaking Trip at Fort Pierce Inlet State Park: Photo by John Reed
What’s Next? The 6 R’s
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds,
I come into the peace of wild things …
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
—Wendell Berry, poet, Kentucky farmer, writer, activist
Great Blue Heron: Photo by Paul Strauss
We live in a fundamentally changed natural world than that our Founders experienced. Our generation, and those that follow, are facing altered biogeochemical cycles of the global earth system as well as a variety of local ecosystem degradations with the loss of critical ecological functions. Those critical functions are enabled by biodiversity in countless ways.
Ours is also the time of the “Sixth Great Extinction,” in which epochal loss of species is being recorded.
In Florida, especially, we are witnessing tremendous population growth and development pressures that have erased or altered prior existing ecosystems, along with species habitats.
Emerging from our changed land-and-water-scapes and looking ahead there is much we can do, indeed, must do to mitigate this crisis. We suggest the 6R’s below for guidance:
- RE-ENCHANT: Many of us have been psychically wounded by the loss of familiar natural areas and their species. “Solastalgia” is a new term that describes the grief that afflicts us as heretofore participants in a profound bond with our favorite places and species. To find the energy to take up “The Great Work” of our time (Thomas Berry), it is recommended that we:
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- Allow time in any part of nature, a tree, a backyard, our parks and preserves, our River and Lagoon and at the beach. The Atala Butterfly at Ft. Pierce Inlet State Park enchanted those of us witnessing its emergence on the coontie. We’ve had countless moments of joy, reaffirming the import of the Alliance’s mission.
- RESERVE ecological function and species biodiversity:
- Ensure those terrestrial, riverine, and marine areas already held in legal conservation status retain their protection. Local examples: Savannas Preserve State Park, Indian River Lagoon Aquatic Preserve, Oculina Deep Coral Reef Habitat Area of Particular Concern, a Marine Protected Area.
- Actively seek to place as many existing healthy land and water ecosystems into protected conservation status as possible, giving those areas with high biodiversity the highest priority; they also tend to be the highest carbon sequesters.
- Lobby elected representative to support national and international agreements like the 30X30 plan to place 30% of the Earth’s land and marine areas into conservation.
- RESEARCH: document the kind of ecosystem, habitats, and species that existed in an area before attempting to restore. Identifying keystone species is of paramount import as they drive ecosystem structure.
- RESTORE: If possible, re-introduce keystone species along with the seeding and plants of flora habitats both on land and in water. Allow for fauna movement routes: local examples are Green Ways, Blue Ways, and Wildlife Corridors.
- REWILD: Allow depleted ecosystems to regenerate themselves, with the knowledge that when nature is left alone it can heal itself. The “complex architecture” reappears as species and their networks re-connect.
- REFRAME the visual aesthetics of our lawns and common green areas of our business and government buildings. We have created a native Florida biodiversity desert in much of Florida, with the norms of clear-cutting the land in preparation for development, removing native species and their habitats, thus losing ecosystem services the provided like clear air and water. We can make an almost immediate difference by learning how to seed with native plants.
Ecologist Doug Tallamy, co-founder of Homegrown National Park, explains:
“In the past we have asked one thing of our gardens, that they be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators, and manage water.”
Pelican Island Audubon hosts an outstanding annual conference that we highly recommend: “Transforming Landscapes for a Sustainable Future”:
Going Native locally. We’ve hosted numerous speakers from the Native Plant Society, Audubon, UF/IFAS and from Broward County’s “NatureScape.” The Master Naturalist program that IFAS offers is a great way to learn about our native ecosystems and species.
NatureScape was an early adopter of the go-native-for-sustainability ethic. Broward County, Florida, has reached out to a mix of residents, business owners and even towns to adopt native landscaping. Working with organizations like UFIFAS and National Wildlife Federation residents can certify their landscapes as Florida Friendly, or Native. To earn an Emerald Award from Broward County a resident’s yard must contain 50% native plant species and provide for wildlife. In their presentation to us, they reported thousands of residents have participated.
A Sense of Place: Guided Nature Tours
Helping residents become acquainted with our local ecosystems, habitats and species is of highest priority for us. We have organized guided hikes and kayak/canoe trips through our state preserve parks, county preserve parks, city of Port St. Lucie Mariposa Cane Slough Preserve, and Evans Creek in Port St. Lucie (now called Evans Park).
The Moonlight Acoustic Tours led by ichthyologist, Grant Gilmore, PhD., on both the Indian River Lagoon and the North Fork of the St. Lucie River were unique and fascinating to the packed audiences onboard. Known as the Treasure Coast’s “fish whisperer,” Dr. Gilmore shared his profound knowledge of the estuarine and marine ecosystems, explaining the biodiversity of fish and other organisms making their homes here (full or part-time). Sounds from under the waters of the Lagoon and the North Fork are always illuminating: Each fish makes distinct sounds and can be identified by their sound signature alone.
Be Part of the Solution
