Photo by @CarltonWard // My first grant from the National Geographic Society was for the first Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition (2012). Starting in Everglades National Park at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, our team paddled, hiked and biked 1,000+ miles in 100 consecutive days, tracing the last remaining wildlife corridor still connecting the Everglades north to the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia. See my recent post @NatGeo for a map showing our route, alongside the route of a 2015 expedition (also supported by NGS), that followed the western reaches of the Corridor from the Everglades Headwaters near Orlando around the Gulf Coast to Alabama. My next several posts will share photos from these expeditions. This photo shows the bow of my kayak pointed at the largest protected mangrove coastline in the Western Hemisphere in Everglades National Park on the first day of the Expedition. See @carltonward for a crocodile draped over mangrove roots from earlier that day. We didn’t see people outside our team for several days as we explored the vast watery wilderness of this World Heritage Area that arguably has the most to lose if we fail to protect a corridor to keep the Everglades connected to its headwaters in Central Florida and the rest of the country beyond. My current #PathofthePanther project with @NatGeo is working to bring more attention to this same issue through the story of the endangered Florida panther, because without protecting a wildlife corridor to the north, the panther will have no path to recovery. The clock is ticking as 1000 people move to Florida each day. Five million acres of the Corridor are projected to be lost by 2070 if development continues along its current sprawling pattern.@insidenatgeo. #everglades #expedition #FloridaWild #KeepFLWild. Expedition members not pictured: @mallorydimmitt @joeguthrie8 and @filmnatureman. https://ift.tt/2IKmB2P
