Ecotourism in Florida - Without a Paddle (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine August 2003

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The Water Issue: Restoration Dreams
Without a Paddle (Cont.)

"RRRAHHH! RRRAHHH!"

This is what we wake up to the next morning. It sounds like the biggest frog I've ever heard—a cross between a lion roar and a human burp.

"That's an alligator," Steve says, leaning on one elbow. "It's a big daddy warning someone where his territory is. If you were a young male alligator, you'd listen to these sounds and then try to find a nice, quiet spot far, far away. Eating small alligators is not so much a delicacy for larger alligators as a territorial necessity."

David is strapping on his camera. It's already hot and he's sweating, rubbing his wrists. The obsessive windmilling will begin in a few hours. "How about humans?" he asks as an even louder bellow emerges, this time about 20 feet to our right.

"Evidently, we're not very tasty," Steve says. "An alligator would much sooner scurry away from a human than bite one. We present a pretty big profile, except when we're just dangling a limb in the water." I yank my left foot out of the river. A chorus of dyspeptic gators accompanies everything we do for the next few hours. We eat oatmeal to the growls. We start poling south by southeast to the growls. I fall face first into the water to the growls and scare a two-foot alligator resting on a lily pad. Our progress is radioed from one alligator to another all morning long.

After lunch, we abandon our canoes and slog through knee-high water to Panther Mound, a raised piece of land, or hammock, thick with gumbo-limbo trees, loblollies, and strangler figs.

"It's completely unreal," Saranne murmurs, holding back the branch of a poisonwood tree. She's wearing gloves, so I don't say anything about it being poisonous to the touch.

"Primordial," notes Steve, momentarily stalled by a tangle of mangrove roots.

"Elemental," David chimes in.

"Disgusting," I say as my foot sinks into two feet of mush.

Saranne leads our approach with a running monologue: "Yes, this is quite difficult...We're almost there...I think I see land..." What she finds difficult, we find impossible. After about half an hour, we reach the hammock. I had imagined an open meadow, ringed and shaded by a few towering royal palms, maybe even a pine or two. There'd be a spot for sunbathing, another for bird-watching. Instead, we get more jungle. The trees are low-slung, with vines hanging to the ground. We have to crouch like apes.

"Limes," Saranne says. "They're all over the place."

"Key limes," I say, picking one up and biting into it. "I love hunting and gathering."

"This is how my granddad did it," Steve says, carefully cutting away the top of a lime. "It's a natural juice box." He clears a clean area for his lips and has at it.

"What kind of bone is this?" David asks, holding up a deer jaw.

There are thousands of bones—all in the center of the hammock, under a sour-orange tree. Something here likes deer and wild pig. We discover a big sleeping nest, and then we notice the scat. Achtung! We're in a minefield of Ho-Ho-size poops.

"This is great!" I announce. "There's scat everywhere."

"What's so great about that?" David asks, camera on. He's wearing a big smile. I figure he's as excited as I am—tasty limes, indications of a sizable predator alive and well—but within days, when every rumble in my stomach means trouble, I will regret eating those limes.

"Well, these scats can only be from a large carnivorous or omnivorous animal," I say, peering into the camera. "There's hairs and some sort of fibrous materials in here." I peel apart a scat. "This part of the Everglades can still sustain some large animal that is dining on what the place has to offer. Isn't that great!"

"Yes, it is, Hodding," Steve says, mournfully. "We should be seeing signs like this on every mound, but I bet we won't."

The Florida panther is generally considered to be on the verge of extinction. Only about 60 live in the wild, and a lot of these are the offspring of cougars brought in from Texas to breed with the panthers. The new hybrid blood is supposed to revive the Florida pride. Things are so bad, though, that in March the St. Petersburg Times made a big deal about the first panther seen in Hillsborough County in 25 years. Unfortunately, it was a roadkill.

A loud crack sounds in the jungle beyond the hammock, the kind that makes three grown men jump. Saranne seems oblivious. Backing away, Steve relates how important it is to leave the animal alone, especially if it's a panther. "But we haven't explored the entire island," Saranne says. "Isn't that what we came for?"

"OK, Saranne, we'll meet you on the other side," I whisper, and slink manfully back to my canoe.

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