The National Audubon Society manages the 11,000 acres of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. There is a boardwalk trail (a long 2.25 mile or short 1 mile) that takes you through the six natural habitats on site (pine flatwood, wet prairie, pond cypress, marsh, lettuce lakes, and bald cypress forest). Aside from a few birds and some random insects, we didn't see many of the preserve's "residents". However, our guide was very knowledgeable and she gave us lots of interesting facts about the wildlife there, and the steps that were being made to keep the preserve as natural and functional as possible. Although it is popular these days to “go green” or be environmentally friendly, actually communing with or physically caring for plants and animals in their natural habitats hasn’t quite caught on.
I remember how as a child I was fascinated by cartoons about the future, the Jetson’s especially. Everyone was happy, life was easy, the planet was clean, it was great all around. But recently a new thought came to my mind: there were hardly any trees in the future! Not that they had become extinct, it just seemed that mankind had learned to do without them. There were plants and grasses sprinkled about sparingly much like the way you’d find them inside a posh shopping mall (stripped palm tree trunks with silk leaves glued on). Jane Jetson had a few houseplants that she watered on occasion, and there was always a tree trunk or bush when Elroy or Astro needed to hide. Otherwise there was no wildlife to speak of. It seems like humanity really is moving in that direction. Maybe not consciously so, but nature is increasingly being treated as a luxury item and not as a necessity. If we don’t take aggressive action to protect nature, she very well may be relegated to a few acres on the fringes (and in the highway medians) of our towns.
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