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Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary a look back at 2021

Dear Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Friends and Family,

2021 proved to be a dramatic year. We cleared vast tracts of restoration land. We safely welcomed thousands of visitors to find solace in nature. We continue to study our hydrology for the sake of local wildlife and neighboring communities.

As the year comes to a close, we take this opportunity to share with you a multi-media presentation with a few highlights from our year and an in-depth look at one of the most important tools in our land management tool chest: prescribed fire. Our prescribed fire goals include reduction of fuel loads (thus minimizing the risk of catastrophic wildfires), regeneration of marshes and wet prairies, preserving fire-dependent plant species, and ensuring healthy habitat for wildlife.

I would also like to take a moment to recognize the amazing efforts of our talented and dedicated staff. Together, we are making great strides in using science-driven land management and education to protect birds, other wildlife, and people.

Please join me in celebrating these events and recognizing how prescribed fire benefits the Sanctuary and our neighbors.

-Lisa Korte, PhD, Sanctuary Director

Wood Stork 2020-21 Nesting Season Recap

Thirteen Wood Stork Pairs Produced 25 Chicks at the Sanctuary

Our monitoring flight in May 2021 showed numerous Wood Stork nests on Lenore Island in the Caloosahatchee River.

Since the 1960s, Wood Stork nest numbers at the Corkscrew colony have declined steadily, concurrent with development. In recent years, Wood Storks have opted not to nest at the Corkscrew colony site more often than they’ve chosen to nest — a clear sign that food resources in our area are inadequate. Years that Wood Storks choose to nest at the Sanctuary, particularly when they’re able to successfully fledge chicks, give scientists hope that there is still time to improve regional conditions and restore annual nesting.

In 2021, the first nests were observed in the Corkscrew colony during the first week of March. While over 60 storks were in the colony, they attended to only 16 active nests — a fraction of the nests seen here historically. This mixed colony also contained more than 140 Great Egret and a few Roseate Spoonbill nests. By June 1, we observed 13 successful Wood Stork nests, with 25 fledgling chicks. Two other Southwest colonies were active this year: Lenore Island (on the Caloosahatchee River) and BC-29 (along SR-29), both producing significantly more nests and fledged chicks than the Corkscrew colony.

Wood Stork family. Photo: R J Wiley

Celebrating Our Dedicated Volunteers

Volunteers Amy Swanson, Gary Greenfield, Isobel Kalafarski, and Murray Barnhart.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary was established when members of the community who cared about the ancient cypress trees came together to keep them safe.

Today, continued support by volunteers is crucial in maintaining these acres for wildlife and people. Keeping the boardwalk clear of debris, creating natural landscapes for bird-friendly communities, providing support for tours and events for donors and members, and removing invasive species are just a few of the ways that our team of dedicated volunteers helps us meet our mission.

Joan Dunn Named Audubon Florida Volunteer of the Year!

Volunteers have been at the heart of Audubon since its founding when regular people banded together to end the slaughter of the Everglades’ wading birds and advocate for sweeping protections for birds that continue today. Each year, Audubon Florida recognizes a Volunteer of the Year for their contributions to Audubon and conservation.

Watch Joan's reaction as Sanctuary Director Lisa Korte and Volunteer Engagement Coordinator Kristina O'Hern inform her of her award!

Since her first volunteer assignment at the Sanctuary in 2007, she has been a loyal and passionate supporter of conservation and has contributed more than 9,400 volunteer hours. Dunn engages with guests through interpretation and ensures everyone gets off the boardwalk safely before the Blair Audubon Visitor Center closes for the day. She has served as a Boardwalk Naturalist, Boardwalk Closer, Day Captain, Ghost Orchid Specialist, Community Science Surveyor, and has provided support for special events, including After-Hours. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary protects more than 13,000 acres of the Western Everglades and welcomes 100,000 visitors annually to its 2.25-mile boardwalk.

A Bird-friendly Event

Director of Public Programs Sally Stein welcomed members to the event.

This summer, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary hosted a successful members-only engagement event - an early bird walk. The event centered around the theme of creating bird-friendly communities by planting native species that attract pollinators and birds.

Public Programs Director Sally Stein kicked off the morning with updates from the Sanctuary and was followed by the volunteer gardener team who shared details about the new Painted Bunting native plant garden. Members then hit the boardwalk to explore the Corkscrew Learning Ampitheater and Sanctuary for Students loop trail, which is normally closed to the public.

In addition to learning about bird-friendly communities, one lucky group of members got to see three playful otters on the boardwalk as well as a Barred Owl. A good time was had by all.

Painted Bunting photos by Brenda Centenaro Stelzer.
Volunteer Janet Eidem engaged with visitors as she shot these photos during our "free" day.

While the Sanctuary typically attracts tourists visiting Naples, we would like to see more families and residents visit from nearby areas like Immokalee, a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural community that plays an integral role in the agricultural industry. In September, the Sanctuary's public engagement team piloted a plan to offer free admission to 500 Collier County residents.

In addition to using traditional outlets, staff member Kristina O’Hern (who is an Immokalee resident) tapped into her personal and professional connections to help spread the word. Flyers were developed in English, Spanish, and Haitian-Creole and made available in digital and print formats. Our timed ticketing platform enabled visitors to stay safe and avoid crowding and it was a great success! We look forward to offering more free days in the coming year to include even more of our neighbors.

Naturalists and guided experiences on the boardwalk are some of the best ways to learn about and experience the Western Everglades. This fall we resumed our public programs and even added a new one to the old lineup.

Perfect for families with young children, Family Night Walks help guests of all ages learn about life in the swamp at night when the nocturnal animals are out and vocal. Take a one-mile walk along our boardwalk with fun activities along the way. The Sanctuary promises plenty to hear or see on a daytime visit but a night walk also includes the sounds of calling insects, possibly owls and alligators, and most likely a surprise or two! You will also learn about the nocturnal biodiversity of the swamp and adaptations that enable nocturnal wildlife to thrive.

A Short History of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

National Audubon Society began protecting the wading birds nesting within Corkscrew Swamp in 1905. During the 1940s and '50s, cypress forests in Florida were being leveled for their timber. Locals, alarmed at the prospect of losing all the great cypress forests to logging, began a campaign to save the swamp. Corkscrew Swamp was designated an Audubon Sanctuary in 1954.

Today, the Sanctuary stands central to the over 60,000-acre Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed, an oasis amidst a rapidly-developing landscape. Outside this watershed, many of the wild swamps and much of the teeming wildlife that was characteristic of this region less than a generation ago are gone.

Thanks to continued community support, we work to maintain its pristine condition, using fire as one of our tools.

LEFT: Hank Bennett stands on his Jeep to survey the Great Prairie Marsh between Eagle Island and Deep Cypress around the Anhinga Pond. Photo: Allan D. Cruickshank.

Fire: A Force that Shapes our Ecosystem

Florida is known for its palm trees, sunshine, and sugar-sand beaches. But another, more dramatic force of nature shapes the landscape we know and love: lightning. Florida has been called the “lightning capital of the U.S.,” with good reason. In South Florida, moisture that evaporates inland over the Everglades pushes outward and collides with summertime sea breezes to create massive thunderheads. Resulting storms can have frequent cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, which under the right conditions can prompt wildfires. Florida is considered one of the most pyrogenic (created or shaped by fire) landscapes in the world, with nearly all ecosystem processes controlled by a combination of water and fire.

With about a million lightning strikes reaching the ground each year, Florida’s plant and animal species have evolved not only to survive wildfires but also thrive with them. Like other large natural disturbances, fire is a “change” event, sparking a renewal process that benefits plants and wildlife by reducing groundcover, which in turn opens up wildlife habitat, adds nutrients to the soil, reduces fuel, and encourages new plant growth.

Some habitats within Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, including our pine flatwoods, are fire-prone, meaning they are usually dry enough to burn during our thunderstorm season and would naturally burn every three to five years. Cabbage palms and saw palmetto help create a thick blanket of kindling on the ground by constantly dropping dead fronds and seedpods, while slash pines provide limbs, cones, and a constant stream of needles. The palm fronds, pine needles, grasses, and other dry brush serve as fuel and can easily ignite with a single lightning strike.

Periodic fires help reduce the amount of fuel, or downed brush, that becomes kindling for lightning strikes.

Periodic fires help keep this fuel load low, which reduces the chance of large wildfires, and they maintain a patchy landscape that is ideal for wildlife. A thick coat of insulating bark enables larger slash pines to survive fires, as long as fires are frequent enough that there is only a moderate amount of fuel on the ground, keeping flames low and out of the tree canopy. Saw palmettos, with their heartwood buried underground, can sprout new green fronds within a few weeks of a fire. When conditions are right, fire can carry across wet prairie and marsh, reducing plant density and creating a patchy habitat, which is ideal for wading bird foraging the following wet season.

Fire presents a particular challenge for managing and maintaining conservation land in South Florida. Conservation lands cannot only be designated and set aside: land managers must work to mimic natural processes in order to maintain healthy plant communities that support native wildlife. At the Sanctuary, prescribed fire is a significant component of our land management program.

A prescribed fire technician ignites vegetation within the North Marsh.

History of Fire in Southwest Florida

People have used fire on the Florida landscape for more than 10,000 years. As previously explained, researchers postulate that lightning regularly sparked the blazes that kept the landscapes more open, in pine forests as well as in wetlands. The Calusa communities purposefully set blazes for hunting, which could have contributed to additional flames in South Florida.

Unfortunately, with increasing development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, land managers stopped the natural progression of fire by putting out flames as soon as they could. The results: more undergrowth, an influx of woody shrubs and thick willow thickets, and more fuel on the landscape, setting the stage for dangerous wildfires.

Within a few decades, scientists realized the importance of fire on the South Florida landscape, and began to purposefully ignite fires to open grasslands and woodlands, reducing the dangerous build-up of woody fuel in the process. Fire both prompts pines to regenerate, and increases the land’s ability to hold water when grasses replace woody vegetation.

An American alligator forages in a wetland at the Sanctuary.

In 1958, staff at Everglades National Park set the very first prescribed fire within the National Park Service – today they burn more than 100,000 acres of Everglades National Park every year. The Florida Park Service followed suit, conducting their first burn in 1971 at Falling Waters State Park. Across the Sunshine State, prescribed fire is a critically important land management tool that helps ecosystems while protecting communities.

Fire along a back-country road in the Sanctuary. Photo: David Korte

As the surrounding wildlands and ranches converted to farms, and eventually the farms began converting to residential and commercial development, Sanctuary staff realized that they needed to keep fire on the landscape. The first prescribed fire took place in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in 1972, and by 1975, Sanctuary staff had burned more than 2,000 acres. Today, the Sanctuary’s land managers meticulously plan and conduct burns every year in an effort to keep the Sanctuary’s 13,450 acres healthy, while protecting the Sanctuary and our neighbors from the threat of catastrophic wildfire.

Wildfire vs. Prescribed Fire

There are two types of fire on the landscape: wildfire and prescribed fire. But what, exactly, is the difference? Wildfire, also called wildland fire, can be beneficial in the right place at the right time, but devastating when too close to human communities or when it burns too hot or over too large an area.

Wildfire: an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in wild, rural, or urban spaces. Increasingly they threaten homes, lives, and communities as well as natural and cultural resources. Excluding fire from an ecosystem that needs periodic fire can and does lead to that system becoming unhealthy and builds up flammable fuels, making it hazardous.

Prescribed fire: the right fire at the right time and in the right place, overseen by trained personnel and conducted in accordance with laws and regulations.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, prescribed fire is the “controlled application of fire by a team of fire experts under specified weather conditions to restore health to ecosystems that depend on fire.”

Find more information from the U.S. Forest Service here.

Unlike wildfires, these are planned fires with specific goals in mind, a choreographed dance with the burn bosses as the directors.

At Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, prescribed fire goals include reduction of fuel loads (thus minimizing risk of catastrophic wildfires), regeneration of marshes and wet prairies, preserving fire-dependent plant species, and ensuring healthy habitat for wildlife.

While ideally prescribed fires would be conducted in the peak of the dry season to fully mimic natural regimes, that is also, unfortunately, when there is the highest risk of wildfires. Resources that could be deployed to support prescribed fire programs are often stretched thin as our firefighting partners battle potentially dangerous wildfires. Because of this - as well as the more predictable weather patterns - the prescribed fire crew at the Sanctuary begins conducting prescribed fires during the dormant months from December to early March and right into the growing season.

As we look to the future, a warming climate, changes to hydrology of the Corkscrew watershed, and an increase in the human population all offer challenges to the prescribed fire program. It is up to us, our partners, and the community to wisely care for these natural lands together. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary delivers clean air and water, provides habitat for wildlife, and offers people a place where they can escape and reconnect with nature. The Sanctuary can’t continue to thrive without community support of all of our programs, including prescribed fires.

Photo: David Korte

Florida Leads the Way in Forest Management Through Prescribed Fire

As Western states contend with increasingly common, large-scale wildfires, some are looking to the Southeastern U.S. as a model. From 1998 to 2018, most of the prescribed fire in the country was in the Southeast, and prescribed fire is widespread in our region thanks to policies put in place decades ago. On opposite ends of the country, ecosystems of the western and southeastern U.S. share a similar need for fire.

Florida leads the nation in prescribed burn accomplishments, with one to two million acres of prescribed fire approved by the Florida Forest Service annually (approximately 10% of total fire area burned nationally). This is especially impressive as nearly 70% of the state is in private ownership. (Ref: Tall Timbers)

In 1990, Florida passed a law to encourage prescribed burns, recognizing that the state would lose significant biodiversity without it. After firestorms burned almost 500,000 acres in 1998, the law was strengthened. (Ref: Southern Fire Exchange)

Senior Resource Manager Allyson Webb is "Burn Boss" for the Sanctuary.

Florida set up a certification system for burn managers, also known as "burn bosses," that required candidates to get special training on weather and landscape conditions for safe burning. All members of the Sanctuary’s land management team, and many other staff members, receive training in order to participate in burns on our land and on nearby conservation lands in tandem with our many partners.

As long as the weather and wind conditions are safe, burn bosses can get a required permit quickly. In Western states, prescribed burn planning can take weeks or even months. This efficiency is important, as losing the natural balance maintained by fire can occur quickly, but regaining that balance normally requires an exponentially larger effort.

Photos: David Korte

Because we know this, maintaining a natural fire regime is an obligation we as land stewards have to the land and a responsibility we strive to fulfill. In fact, we built prescribed fire into our marsh and prairie restoration plans: prescribed fire is the last phase in our three-phase approach to removing invasive Carolina willow and restoring the grassy habitats that are being lost.

Wetlands like those at the Sanctuary filter nutrients and pollutants from surface water before it reaches the coast, so keeping them healthy is also imperative for reducing harmful algal blooms like red tide. As we approach our burning goals, we will restore the complex synergy that created this natural treasure while helping make local communities more resilient.

Sunrise over the marsh.
Photo: David Korte

Fire Means Ideal Habitat for Many Species

Land conservation and restoration efforts rarely aim to benefit a single species, but rather, entire ecosystems. Maintaining the natural vegetation within any landscape brings tremendous benefits to its associated wildlife.

Preserving the open character of these habitats enables sunlight to reach the ground, where it nourishes maintains grasses that produce seed, which are an important food for rabbits and other small game. Fire clears out downed limbs, dried brush, and other debris, enabling a variety of animals to access new areas for foraging.

Fire, itself, adds nutrients to the soil and stimulates the growth of grasses and understory plants that white-tailed deer love to eat. Because deer are a primary prey item for Florida panthers, prescribed fire benefits one of the most imperiled species in Florida. A true testament to the value of managing a natural landscape is the continued presence of top-level predators like the panther. If panthers find what they need here, we have done our job in ensuring our landscape is a healthy one.

In addition to panthers, deer, and rabbits, Northern Bobwhite quail rely on relatively open habitat where sunlight reaches the ground. Also known as the “fire bird,” quail are primarily seedeaters and require a variety of grassland plants for forage, with access to shrubs and small trees that provide cover for them to escape predators. This mosaic of low-growing vegetation is created and naturally maintained where fire events take place every few years. While many large landowners manage forests for this game bird by selectively harvesting timber, research has shown that vegetation created by disturbances from fire is the most beneficial process for providing the ideal habitat for these birds, and for many other animals across our landscape.

Left: Northern Bobwhite quail.

Reaping the Rewards of Fire

Just ten months post-burn, many areas of the Sanctuary have come alive with color.

Wildflowers such as glade lobelia (Lobelia glandulosa) and goldenrod (Euthamia caroliniana) have blossomed this fall in the areas where fire had been applied.

The Future

In time, our staff is hopeful that restoration of the Sanctuary’s historic hydrology and reduction of fuel loads will allow a return to more growing season fires. With continued changes in land use around the Sanctuary, the challenge of maintaining natural communities and a healthy ecosystem is increasing, but the need to do so, for our ecosystem and the people that live in and around it, is greater than ever.

(Photo: David Korte)

Managing prescribed fire on our landscape requires intense training and expensive equipment. We successfully burned 490 acres in 2021, and our goal for 2022 is 1,300+ acres. As we kick off our 2022 prescribed fire season, please consider a gift to support this effort.