Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary was established by the National Audubon Society in 1954 to protect the largest remaining strand of old-growth bald cypresses in North America from logging. The original tract of 2,240 acres was expanded and now protects 13,000 acres of cypress forests, pine flatwoods, freshwater marsh, and wet prairie.
To preserve Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and support conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems throughout the Western Everglades. We use science-driven land management and education to protect birds, other wildlife, and people.
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is at the heart of the Western Everglades.
The Florida Everglades encompass approximately 7,800 square miles of wetlands and other habitats. Much is protected under state or federal ownership. Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary's 13,000 acres serve as a crucial conduit for surface waters through the Western Everglades watershed.
Although 2020 started out like a normal year, things changed abruptly. The boardwalk, which had been open 365 days a year, invited as many as one hundred thousand visitors annually to immerse themselves in the largest remaining, old-growth bald cypress forest. In March, the onset of the pandemic caused the longest closure of the boardwalk in its history. This decision was made for the health and safety of our visitors and staff.
We were thrilled to safely welcome visitors back to enjoy the healing nature of the Sanctuary in September.
Because of the pandemic, Sanctuary staff worked in creative ways to continue stewarding critical habitat, virtually educating students and the wider community, and studying this amazing natural resource.
We implemented several procedural changes across our operations for added COVID safety. Timed-ticketing enables us to welcome up to 240 visitors to the boardwalk each day without overcrowding, and we now require visitors to walk the boardwalk in a single direction.
The Gallery Café remains closed, and the Nature Store went online until it reopened in December. We still offer a variety of gifts and souvenirs, which are now available for purchase both online and in person.
Public Engagement
Sanctuary educators developed an innovative new tool to educate students and visitors. During a typical year, hundreds of Collier County Public School students enjoy an immersive experience in the swamp, learning about the Sanctuary’s 13,000 acres of pine flatwoods, wet prairies, and cypresses as part of the Collier County Public School Field Trip Specialist program.
This year, Sanctuary educators developed a virtual experience for students and teachers. The Wild Florida Adventure Tour was developed for fifth graders with the support of the Community Foundation of Collier County.
Additionally, we have made the boardwalk map and scavenger hunt available electronically, both on our website and also through QR codes available for visitors to download these at the Center.
While our in-person programming came to an end with the "stay-at-home" order, we worked to share educational messages from the Sanctuary in other ways.
Live-streamed videos from the boardwalk, including one of Lettuce Lake that was shared by National Audubon Society in April, garnered thousands of views from around the nation and world. Additionally, we continued our "Lunch & Learn" series virtually! We even hosted a webinar about ghost orchids featuring Sanctuary staff and our friends and research colleagues, Mac Stone and Peter Houlihan.
Volunteers are the Heart of the Sanctuary!
With no onsite programming being offered and all interior facets of the Blair Audubon Center closed, only essential staff were permitted at the Sanctuary. The volunteer program was completely suspended.
Despite the pandemic, volunteer hour milestones from 2019 were appreciated virtually. The names of twenty-five individuals were engraved on the Volunteer Service Hours Plaque in the Blair Audubon Visitor Center for amassing at least 500 service hours dedicated to the Sanctuary.
Additionally, program managers specifically recognized six volunteers (or volunteer teams) for their continued dedication to efforts furthering the Sanctuary’s mission.
During a typical year, as many as 175 active volunteers donate upwards of 25,000 hours across all aspects of the sanctuary. When we reopened and outdoor assignments became available, our loyal team was reduced to just 22 individuals. They were as happy to return as we were to welcome them back!
We really appreciate the small group of committed and hardworking volunteers who have stepped up to the task to help us keep the boardwalk safe and swept clean of this debris, especially while we were closed.
Research
Long-term datasets are critically important for identifying and understanding trends. Research staff at the Sanctuary have been monitoring the shortened hydroperiod, or the number of days each year that water is above ground in a wetland, as part of their effort to understand local Wood Stork nesting efforts.
Thanks to funding support from Knopf Family Foundation and others, Sanctuary staff have some new tools in their toolbox, including two solar-powered, satellite-telemetered, water-level recorders installed for the purpose of long-term hydrologic monitoring.
Speaking of Wood Storks...
In the 2018 nesting season, 250 Wood Storks nested at the sanctuary. In 2019, only two chicks fledged. While Wood Storks were seen foraging in the swamp and some nesting success was been reported by research partners monitoring colony sites in Everglades National Park, there was no evidence of successful Wood Stork nesting at the Sanctuary or any other Southwest Florida colonies in 2020. Due to COVID-19 protocols, we were not able to conduct our monitoring flights.
Flights were initiated for the 2021 season in December. No Wood Storks were recorded during the December flight.
Hydrologic Model Nearly Complete!
This has been a tremendously exciting year for Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary’s research team and our effort to better understand the nature of our changing hydrology. In 2015, preliminary examination of long-term water level data from the Sanctuary suggested a change in annual water level patterns. Over the last five years, our team has worked to better understand and describe a marked over-drying of the Sanctuary during the dry season. This change has important implications for the Sanctuary’s plant communities, wildlife, and vulnerability to catastrophic wildfire, in addition to our region’s fresh water supply. We have taken the first step in understanding the root cause for this hydrologic change in hopes that we can stop or reverse the ecological damage to our wetlands.
Early this year, Audubon partnered with South Florida Water Management District’s Big Cypress Basin for a one-year modelling study focused on unravelling and understanding three potential causes of our hydrologic change: increased evapotranspiration from conversion of wetlands to woody shrubs, groundwater pumping (from municipal well fields and agriculture), and downstream drainage (from canal operations). While the project will not be finalized until February 2021, we have learned that all three of these stressors impact the Sanctuary to some degree. Our team is working to propose some solutions that have the potential to reverse much of our dry-season water loss.
This project is a huge win for our region and our state as it provides valuable information about how changes in land use adjacent to wetland ecosystems can disrupt natural processes. This information will help us better protect the Sanctuary and can ultimately help the scientific community understand how to protect many more of Florida’s special places.
Maintaining our Ramsar Designation
Did you know? Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is one of 41 U.S.-designated Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention and one of more than 2,300 so-called Ramsar sites worldwide. In 2009, the United States selected the Sanctuary for this honor for many reasons, including its role as the home of the largest remaining stand of virgin bald cypress trees in the world and the habitat it provides for nearly 200 species of birds.
Photo: RJ Wiley
Over the summer, staff members worked with Ramsar representatives to update the ecological characterization for Corkscrew’s Swamp Sanctuary's wetland determination. These criteria include soil types and plants and animals present. Since 2009, we have identified hundreds of new plant and animal species that use the wetland habitat that the Sanctuary provides. These wetlands do a lot for the community as well, including recharging the aquifer, providing flood protection, improving water quality, and serving as a carbon sink.
University Students to the Rescue!
In a "normal" year, conservation interns are hired for six-month assignments and live on-site, assisting with a variety of monitoring projects that help drive management decisions. The data they collect contribute to our understanding of how the habitats within the Sanctuary and the Western Everglades are changing.
As we continue to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic, we were fortunate to have Florida Gulf Coast University students come to the rescue! The students have provided valuable assistance with the fish sampling program and will soon assist with trail camera monitoring and maintenance.
Land Management
Land Management staff rely on a variety of equipment to access and manage densely vegetated and other hard-to-reach ‘wild Florida habitats.’
“We’ve had to tighten our belts but we are still able to meet the strategic goals set for Sanctuary management.” – Marshall Olson, Director of Conservation
Marsh Restoration
In the past few decades, wetlands all over Florida have changed from wet prairies and marshes to large tracts dominated by dense willow. Our goal is to restore current areas dominated by willow on Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary to their historic herbaceous marsh and wet prairie communities and maintain them primarily with prescribed fire.
The three-phase restoration process, which began in 2018, consists of mechanically removing overgrown woody vegetation, followed by spot treatment of invasive plant regrowth and, finally, conducting a successful prescribed burn.
As of 2020, approximately 18 acres are now restored through all three phases. Once completely restored, these marshes and prairies can again function as biologically diverse wetland systems that remove nutrients from surface water before it reaches our estuaries, reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in our community, hold floodwaters during severe weather events, and provide habitat to many species of wading birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.
Fire!
Fire is one of the the most important processes affecting the character and distribution of natural systems at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and throughout the region. Virtually all plants and animals here evolved with fire and are dependent upon it. Without fire, marshes, wet prairies, and flatwoods with primarily herbaceous vegetation become dominated by woody vegetation, and the composition of plant and animal communities is drastically changed. Because we know this, maintaining a natural fire regime is an important responsibility we strive to fulfill.
The 1,240 acres burned this fire season have only been exceeded five times in the Sanctuary’s fire record going back to 1973. Considering the early curtailment of burning this season due to the pandemic, this was quite an accomplishment.
We now have 2,091 acres in prescription, up from 337 when the Fire Management Plan was written in 2017.
Panther Island Mitigation Bank
The alarm calls of a covey of adult and juvenile Northern Bobwhite Quail drew Allyson Webb, Senior Resource Manager to a stop. She watched as ten juveniles ran from a patch of seeding grasses where they were foraging into a patch of saw palmetto for cover. Two adults continued to call and slowly followed, keeping an eye on her as she stood still while they regrouped.
She was surveying for invasive plants in a pine flatwoods portion of Panther Island Mitigation Bank. This 43-acre burn unit has been treated with fire through the prescribed fire program on a consistent two to three-year rotation. As a result, bird species like the Northern Bobwhite Quail (Colinus virginianus) and Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) have been coming back to the area. Beautiful native plants, like netted pawpaw (Asimina reticulate), bottlebrush threeawn (Aristida spiciformis), yellow milkwort (Polygala rugelii), slender gayfeather (Liatris gracilis), and many others are responding and their populations are expanding.
In 2020, the land management team conducted three prescribed fires on Panther Island, burning 335 acres of pine flatwoods, wet prairies, and marshes. Additional activities on Panther Island included invasive species treatment and removal over approximately 1,800 acres for the year 2020.
The year 2020 has reminded us that we need wild places, and wild places need us. We are fortunate for all of the donors and partners who help sustain our work as we recover from the financial impacts of COVID-19. Together, we can protect, restore, and enhance the Western Everglades ecosystem. You are a beacon of hope for the wildlife and people who rely on this special place!