Get the latest on conservation in Florida
Sign up for the Advocate!
Type in your search and hit Enter on desktop or hit Go on mobile device
The Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) and collaborating land developers are pressing forward with a destructive plan that would route part of the new Osceola Parkway through the Split Oak Forest Wildlife and Environmental Area in Osceola County. The initial proposal cut through the heart of Split Oak Preserve and ran directly through the middle of valuable scrub habitat, home to several Scrub-Jay families.
The federally Threatened Florida Scrub-Jay is the Sunshine State’s only endemic bird species – found nowhere else in the world. Bold, curious, and living in cooperative family groups, most jays never venture more than a few miles from where they hatched.
After a long campaign by Audubon Florida and partners, the South Florida Water Management District entered into a new lease agreement on the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge this March, effectively saving this important National Wildlife Refuge! The agreement allows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continue managing this resource for wildlife.
Audubon staff and board directors joined Everglades Foundation colleagues and Everglades advocates in our nation’s capital to advocate for America’s Everglades.
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 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.
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.
According to the annual South Florida Wading Bird Report, 2017 produced some of the highest nest counts in the Everglades in a decade. The success was characterized by hydro-patterns mimicking historic, pre-drainage conditions in some parts of the Everglades.