NPS - Everglades National Park Traditional Cache
Hidden : 5/15/2017
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:


Everglades National Park is a U.S. National Park in Florida that protects the southern 20 percent of the original Everglades. In the United States, it is the largest tropical wilderness, the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River, and is visited on average by 1 million people each year. It is the third-largest national park in the lower 48 states after Death Valley and Yellowstone. It has been declared an International Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site, and a Wetland of International Importance, one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.

Most national parks preserve unique geographic features; Everglades National Park was the first created to protect a fragile ecosystem. The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing .25 miles per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay. The Park is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere. It is home to 36 threatened or protected species including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee, and supports 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles. The majority of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park.

Humans have lived for thousands of years in or around the Everglades. Plans arose in 1882 to drain the wetlands and develop the land for agricultural and residential use. As the 20th century progressed, water flow from Lake Okeechobee was increasingly controlled and diverted to enable explosive growth of the South Florida metropolitan area. The park was established in 1934, to protect the quickly vanishing Everglades, and dedicated in 1947, as major canal building projects were initiated across South Florida. The ecosystems in Everglades National Park have suffered significantly from human activity, and restoration of the Everglades is a politically charged issue in South Florida.

Everglades National Park covers 1,509,000 acres, throughout Dade, Monroe, and Collier counties in Florida. The elevation typically ranges from 0 to 8 feet above sea level, but a Calusa-built shell mound on the Gulf Coast rises 20 feet above sea level.

President George H. W. Bush signed the Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act on December 13, 1989 that added 109,506 acres to the eastern side of the park, closed the park to airboats, directed the Department of the Army to restore water to improve the ecosystems within Everglades National Park, and "Direct(ed) the Secretary of the Interior to manage the Park in order to maintain the natural abundance, diversity, and ecological integrity of native plants and animals, as well as the behavior of native animals, as part of their ecosystem." Bush remarked in his statement when signing the act, "Through this legislation that river of grass may now be restored to its natural flow of water". In 1993 the park was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

In 2000, Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), a federal effort to restore the Everglades with the objectives of "restoration, preservation and protection of the south Florida ecosystem while providing for other water-related needs of the region", and claiming to be the largest environmental restoration in history. It was a controversial plan; detractors worried that it "relies on uncertain technologies, overlooks water quality, subsidizes damaging growth and delays its environmental benefits". Supporters of the plan included the National Audubon Society, who were accused by Friends of the Everglades and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation of prioritizing agricultural and business interests.

Everglades National Park was directly hit by Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita in 2005. Such storms are a natural part of the park's ecosystem; 1960's Hurricane Donna left nothing in the mangroves but "standing dead snags" several miles wide, but 30 years later the area had completely recovered. Predictably, what suffered the most in the park from the 2005 hurricanes were manmade structures. In 2009 the visitors' center and lodge at Flamingo were irreparably damaged by 125 mph winds and an 8 ft storm surge; the lodge had been functioning for 50 years when it was torn down: nothing is slated to replace it.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Snxr ebpx ghpxrq vagb abbx bs n ynetr gerr, nobhg 2 srrg bss gur tebhaq.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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