FWC is looking for volunteers to take over the care and maintenance of their official geocaches! Stay involved in one of your favorite outdoor activities and find opportunities to help out FWC and learn about what goes into fish and wildlife management. Contact me or visit http://myfwc.com/get-involved/volunteer/
This geocache was part of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Wildlife Management Area System in 2017. There are 49 geocaches hidden on WMAs across Florida, from the panhandle to the Keys. See if you can find them all!
For more information on Spirit-of-the-Wild WMA visit http://myfwc.com/viewing/recreation/wmas/lead/spirit-of-the-wild/. You can also see a calendar of hunt dates on this site.
Spirit-of-the-Wild’s mix of wetlands and uplands and its location immediately adjacent to the long, linear wetland known as Okaloacoochee Slough, creates excellent wildlife viewing opportunities. Herons, egrets, ibis, roseate spoonbill and wood stork congregate at ditches and wetlands. Crested caracara, Florida sandhill crane, eastern meadowlark and killdeer frequent open pastures. Scan fence lines for loggerhead shrikes and evidence of their small prey, impaled on barbed-wire. The regularly-burned pine flatwoods host northern bobwhite, several woodpecker species and resident and migratory warblers. Watch for white-tailed deer and wild turkey in clearings and along the edges of woodlands and sloughs. Swallow-tailed kites are a spring and summer specialty usually spotted in flight over open areas. Autumn wildflower blooms in wetlands and roadside ditches attract numerous species of butterflies.