Fisheating Creek: Preserving A Special Place In Florida's Final Frontier - Paperback

by Kevin Seamon (Editor), Bruce Ford (Author)

The Fisheating Creek ecosystem is located just west of Lake Okeechobee within a region referred to as Florida's Final Frontier. This interior region of central Florida from south of Orlando to north of the Everglades is one of the last large areas not yet impacted by the urban sprawl of Florida's massive growth machine. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has stated that its strategic location makes Fisheating Creek important to the long-term welfare of the Florida Panther, Florida black bear, Swallow-tailed kite, whooping and sandhill cranes, crested Caracara and a number of other species native to the region. Regarding the scenic beauty of Fisheating Creek, the FWC states that "The shaded, winding, Fisheating Creek corridor, with its black water, bald cypress swamps, hardwood hammocks and other attendant vegetation, represents an outstanding native landscape - one that has become uncommon in this part of the State." The author describes the abundant and unique natural resources found in the Fisheating Creek Ecosystem, identifies some of the development pressures which threatened it, and current programs available to preserve it. His hope is that increased awareness of this beautiful and unique area may result in preservation of remaining unprotected portions of the Fisheating Creek Ecosystem while there is still time.

Author Biography

In 1959 the author's family moved from Winston Salem North Carolina to Orlando Florida when he was six years old. At that time the population of Florida was just five million and the state was still very rural. The 2013 population has surge to almost 20 million. The author's father starting taking him and his brother Randell to the Fisheating Creek Wildlife Management Area around 1969 to hunt, fish and camp and that is when his lifelong passion for this unique area began to grow. The author and his brother Randall have spent a lifetime enjoying the beauty of Florida's natural areas and wildlife from canoing the Oklocknee River north of Tallahassee to hiking the Big Cypress Swamp east of Naples. But no other area has captivated them like Fisheating Creek with it remote location, abundant wildlife, large unbroken landscapes of dry prairies, floodplain marshes, primordial creek bottoms and just plain Old Florida beauty. After almost thirty years in government working primarily in the areas of Comprehensive Planning, resource planning and land use planning in Northeast Florida, the author retired to St. Augustine with his wife Laurie along with their dog and two cats where he began writing this book.