No fins but gators to the left and right

Today we explored the other side of the Everglades, Shark Valley on the north side. We did a 9:00 a.m. tram tour and saw so many alligators we lost count! Most were sun bathing, but some were in their courting season. We even saw a mama alligator with about 20 babies. It is even rougher to be a mama alligator than a human mom. Female alligators lay 20 - 40 eggs every year. Only 5-10 percent of the babies survive. The male alligator leaves fairly quickly, because he might want to eat the babies. The babies stay with mom for a few years until they start wanting to eat their siblings, then they are thrown out of the nest. We also saw a few Florida soft shell turtles that had crawled onto the road to lay their eggs. There were also egrets, great blue herons, and anhingas again. We also saw purple gallinules, a very colorful bird whose beak looks like a candy corn.

It is called Shark Valley because it empties into the shark river, but we didn’t see any sharks. It didn’t seem much like a valley, either. The basic level is full of saw grass which has very sharp edges. When the elevation changes a few feet, more plants are able to grow which first creates bay woods which are very condensed and small mammals are able to be safe from larger predators. Another foot or two higher in elevation are hardwood hammocks where trees grow and the earth stays much much dryer. Crazy to think a few feet make that much of a difference.

We didn’t see them, but according to the guides, there are two crocodiles who live in Shark Valley even though it is fresh rather than salt water. No one knows exactly how they got there, but they seem to be doing okay . Halfway through the tour we got out and climbed the observation tower which gave us a wonderful view of the “valley.”

We also heard about the large number of pythons in the park, they aren’t sure but they think between 100,000 - 300,000 are present. The population (and each snake!) has been growing so fast that there has been a 95 percent reduction in the number of small mammals in the park because of the pythons. The NPS hired people to catch and remove/kill the pythons. Initially they rescued more of the hunters than reduced the number of pythons. Then they hired a trainer from India and the hunters got better. They pay $50 per python + a bonus of $25 for each foot over 4 feet long. We decided we are not changing our careers. It was a great tour.

After we left the Everglades National Park we went to Coopertown Airboats and took an air boat through the sloughs , also known as the slowest river in the world. It moves about a mile every day. It seemed more like a thrill ride than our other naturalist guided tours. He drove so fast right over the grass and lily pads in the water. We saw a few more turtles and gators.

We went for a late lunch at Monty’s in coconut grove (in another marina!) We each had a boat drink (or two) with our lunch and enjoyed the beautiful weather and boats around us. We drove by where we need to meet for our boat trips tomorrow and then headed back to our AirBnB to chill for the night. Tomorrow we go back to Biscayne National Park and experience the water portion.Weiterlesen