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Annual 60-Day ORV Closure for Wheeled Vehicles
Beginning at 12:01 am Monday, June 3, the annual 60-day recreational ORV closure for all units of the Preserve that allow for wheeled ORV access will begin. The closure will be lifted on Friday, August 2. More »
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Campground Closures
Beginning Monday, May 13 through Friday, August 16 camping will be available at the Midway Campground and the “loop” in the Bear Island Campground within Big Cypress National Preserve. All other established campgrounds will be closed. More »
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Interstate 75 Mile Marker 63 Closure
Beginning summer of 2013 the rest area and backcountry access at mile marker 63 will be closed due to construction. More »
Environmental Factors
"Sunrise Mist"
Richard Eskin
For countless centuries, the landscape and associated plant and animal life of Big Cypress and the Greater Everglades Ecosystem have been shaped and altered by the forces of nature. Flood, drought, hurricanes, fire, frost, have had their influence. Those same environmental factors continue their molding and sculpting today, though often on a time scale that seems to make change invisible. In more recent times, the interactions of people and the landscape have influenced the landscape and the life that depends on it. Swampland has been drained, cleared and cultivated, roads have been constructed, and homesteads established. Wildfires were stopped and non-native vegetation was introduced. Pollutants have also degraded water quality. Non-native plants and animals, which have arrived in this country from distant parts of the world, threaten to have substantial impacts on the Preserve's swamp ecosystem. National Preserve staff and cooperating scientists are working to better understand these environmental factors and to find ways to manage those that are adversely impacting the condition of preserve resources. |
Did You Know?
Mermaid sightings have been reported by sailors throughout history who often blamed the part-woman, part-fish beings for leading them astray. But folklore experts believe that what those sailors were seeing were not mermaids, but rather air-breathing manatees, or their dugong relatives. More...