The Tamiami Trail, a 1920s road built to link Tampa and Miami, chokes the flow of much-needed freshwater through the historic heart of the Southern Everglades. Just over two years since groundbreaking, the second phase of the Tamiami Trail bridging project, which allows water to flow under the road, is on track to be completed by the end of 2018.

With many competing priorities for funding, Audubon works hard in Tallahassee and Washington to secure the funds needed for Everglades restoration. A restored River of Grass depends on strong and sustained appropriations each year to get projects from start to finish and avoid costly delays.

The Picayune Strand project was the first of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) components to begin construction. It is now close to becoming one of the first fully completed CERP projects.

The Kissimmee River Restoration project is tantalizingly close to completion. Once finished in 2020, more than 40 square miles of river floodplain will flood seasonally, and the river will meander again.

Florida Bay, the vast lagoon between the Florida Keys and the mainland, is home to some of the most unique wildlife and habitat in the world. But this special place is telling us something is wrong.

After six months of intense planning, the South Florida Water Management District approved the Tentatively Selected Plan for the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Storage Reservoir project in March. The project remains on schedule.

Audubon staff and board directors joined Everglades Foundation colleagues and Everglades advocates in our nation’s capital to advocate for America’s Everglades.

There is no sugar-coating it. Baby season is a tough and hectic time at the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland, Florida. In February, you can hear staff say, “look how cute, a baby Great Horned Owl just arrived.” However, by June you hear, “do we still have a kennel free for another Red-shouldered Hawk?”

While many people associate Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Florida with its cypress swamp boardwalk and extraordinary wildlife viewing, fewer realize that it is an active laboratory. Behind the scenes, Audubon researchers, land managers, educators, and policy advocates work to unravel the threats facing Corkscrew’s watershed and prescribe a course of restoration that will benefit the entire Western Everglades.

The equivalent of Piping Plover royalty were spotted wintering in Florida this year! In 2017, for the first time in 60 years, two pairs of Piping Plovers nested in Pennsylvania on the shores of Lake Erie.