The Everglades

We just returned from a quick trip to Miami to see my older brother get married. Second to the wedding my favorite part of the trip was our trek to the Everglades. Jess had surprised me by renting a Jeep Wrangler so we put the top down and headed south. Rainstorms quickly forced us to put the top back on but it did not damper our fun. The everglades proved to be wonderful, mysterious and frankly a little creepy. The area is a swamp and home to reptiles of unusual size. We walked on a trail and spotted alligators both in the swamp and near the trail. We also saw huge snapping turtles. The alligators alone were enough to creep me out a bit but while we drove we ran over a snake and then had a large snake lunge at our wheels as we passed by. We drove 48 miles through the everglades until we reached Flamingo at the southern trip of Florida. It almost felt as if you were in another world as vultures flew over in a landscape of water and jungle type plants. The highlight of our trip was seeing two sea manatees swimming in the Flamingo Bay. They are beautiful and gentle creatures and seemed to be unfazed by the alligator swimming near by.

The Everglades has recently faced a problem of the introduction of exotic species into the habitat as humans release unwanted pets into the water. This includes exotic fish and snakes but pythons have become especially troublesome. The python is not indigenous to North America but released pythons have thrived in the warm swampy Everglades with little to natural predators. The National Park Service was looking to rid the Everglades of pythons and received an interesting solution from Africa. The proposed solution is to create wooden boxes with slats and openings wide enough for a python to enter. In the box place a small pig. The python goes in the box, eats the pig and is too large to exit the box and is thus trapped. I can't help but find this kind of funny. In Africa this is a logical solution. In America this is an opportunity for pig lovers to protest.