Wildlife main beneficiary of restoration 

by Kevin Lollar • klollar@news-press.com • June 27, 2008

Passing through the gate was like crossing from one world to another.

On one side was Panther Island Mitigation Bank, a series of wetlands rich in diverse native vegetation and wildlife.

On the other was a 640-acre cow pasture full of cattle, low grass and little wildlife.

But the cattle will soon be gone, and the cow pasture will be restored to a more natural wetland state.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary has traded 1,280 acres to the South Florida Water Management District for the cow pasture, on the sanctuary’s north border, and 480 acres on its southwest border; the sanctuary’s two new properties will be restored as a mitigation bank.

“The swap is done,” sanctuary director Ed Carlson said. “The land we swapped to the district was surplus land. We didn’t need it. The district is putting trails on that land, and we’re restoring our new land. It’s a perfect deal.”

Possibly by the end of the year, the public will have access to 10 miles of trails on the water district’s new land.

“This was pretty much an acre-for-acre trade — no cash had to change hands,” said Phil Flood, director of the district’s Lower West Coast Service Center. “Why this is advantageous to us is that the piece we got allows us to complete the trail we’re working on. The land we traded was out-holdings: They really weren’t contiguous to our holdings.”

Southwest Florida Wetlands Joint Venture will do the restoration work on Corkscrew’s land — the company has already restored the 2,778-acre Panther Island Mitigation Bank, which runs along the sanctuary’s western border.

Corkscrew will take over and manage Panther Island.

The restoration will be done through mitigation: Under Florida law, if a developer or government agency wants to destroy wetlands, there are four choices, one of which is to buy credits at a mitigation bank — degraded wetlands that are restored by someone else.

Restoration includes re-creating wetlands and removing exotic vegetation.

In restoring Panther Island, Southwest Florida Wetlands Joint Venture created a three-tier contour system — wetlands of different depths.

“We decided to have three different levels of water,” said Bill Barton, chairman of the mitigation bank’s management committee. “So, if we have a normal year of rainfall, the center tier will be at levels compatible for bird foraging. If we have excessive rain, the upper levels will be more compatible. In drought years, the lower level will be compatible. We’ve created conditions, regardless if we have wet, average or dry conditions, so we’ll have some part of the area that’s good for the birds.”

In Corkscrew’s new 480-acre area, restoration will be mainly removal of exotic vegetation.

At the other site, emphasis will be on creating shallow wetlands, which are typically dry more than half the year.

Shallow, or short-hydroperiod, wetlands are extremely important feeding areas for endangered wood storks — Corkscrew is the largest wood stork nesting colony in North America.

“Storks used to show up in October and hang around in the short-hydroperiod wetlands — that’s where made their living,” sanctuary resource manager Jason Lauritsen said. “Then, as the wetlands dried down by November and December, they saw concentrations of fish and aquatic vertebrates that encouraged them to nest.

“Now, because we’ve lost so many of those early foraging areas, they don’t nest until January or February. That’s an indication that something’s wrong with the system.”

Wood storks won’t be the only beneficiaries of restored shallow wetlands, which include wet prairies and hydric pine flatwoods.

“These habitats are great cover for insects and fish in their nursery stage,” Lauritsen said. “When you have a lot of light hitting the ground, you often get an algae mat, and the aquatic organisms thrive on that algae mat. It’s a very rich primary-production zone that fuels everything that comes later.”

Work on the new Corkscrew property probably won’t start for at least a year, Lauritsen said.

When restoration is complete, the former cow pasture will be much as Carlson knew it back in the 1960s.

“Back then, it was the most beautiful property there was,” he said. “It was a beautiful mosaic of habitats. By the late ’70s, it was all squash fields. Now, in my lifetime, I’m going to see what was paradise to me restored.”