Winter 1999

• Wekiva 2020: A Growth Plan to Balance Nature and People - Steve Phelan
• Saving "Snags" to Save Biodiversity - Deborah Green
• On Seeing and Saving our Florida Black Bear - Phares Heindl
• We Need Your Help for the Newsletter: Submission Guidelines - Bill Belleville

What will Central Florida look like in twenty years when the state's human population has doubled? Plans for that eventuality have been drawn by a variety of institutions, but the Friends and the Environmental Studies Department at Rollins are going to combine to create their own vision.  

Helping out in this joint venture are a number of Rollins students who through internships with Friends will start working toward this larger vision with a variety of small projects. They will also be working with Drs. Bruce Stephenson and Lee Lines to construct a project for the senior seminar course. Grants have been written to fund these endeavors and the results will be reported in future issues of Currents.

On March 20, Wekiva 2020 will enter its initial phase when the Rollins Environmental Studies Department will host a charrette for the Friends, interns, and faculty. Eventually, the idea is to have a clear and marketable vision for the three-county area surrounding the river basin. This vision will then be compared to the county plans, the Wekiva Geopark five-year plan, and the relatively unplanned development.

Bruce Stephenson, an expert on urban design, wants to explore the possibilities of "rural villages" with open spaces for children and others to enjoy, pathways readily available for hiking and biking, and additional preserved areas of ecological value. Achieving the density of population to realize the investors value in the land may require some clustering or multiple densities within the defined projects.

Often the Friends of Wekiva have been so stalwart in the defense of the river that it appears (esp. to developers and public officials) that we make no allowance for development. Wekiva 2020 will eventually produce a comprehensive plan with additional acquisitions in the protected areas and it will call for the adoption of river-friendly patterns of growth. We want a plan worthy of the great natural beauty with which our region is exceptionally blessed. We want the folks of Central Florida to be as proud of the Wekiva Basin and Geopark as the residents of Jackson Hole when they look up at their Tetons. (Inquiries: Jo Anna Baber, 646-4392)

With the help of Rollins intern Patrick Harvey, we are planning new developments on the FOWR website (http://members.aol.com/FOWR). Through a linking to the Rollins Environmental Studies site, Patrick will be building a Wekiva 2020 domain. This site, interlinked with our aol site, will display basic documents for an understanding of river issues, reports of the various intern projects, plans for the upcoming charrette, and representations of its conclusions. We also plan to do a better job of linking our sites to other environmental organizations in the area and to valuable sources of ecological information in the state.

The Florida Black Bear is an elusive and shy animal. For years I paddled the Wekiva and saw deer, otter and many species of birds, but the black bear eluded me. After years of hauling my canoe there, I finally moved to the river and was finally able to get on the water earlier and more often.

One day while paddling in a solo canoe, I heard a noise high in the trees along the river banks. When I looked up, I saw a large dark blur scurrying down a tree. The blur was much larger than a raccoon, possum, or fox squirrel, and the noise was louder than I had ever heard before. I strongly suspected I had seen a bear.

A few months later, as I was paddling a kayak up the Wekiva approaching the confluence of the little Wekiva, I heard a noise. When I turned to look, I saw a large mother bear with two clubs standing by a large tree near the river bank. My presence frightened the cubs and they scampered up the tree. There mother followed and assumed a protective position in a lower fork of the tree. The mother bear pawed the air and growled to discourage anyone from attempting to climb the tree and harm the cubs.

As I sat in awe watching the bears, a caravan of canoeists from Katie's Landing came down the river. I eagerly pointed out the bears to these lucky ecotourists. One of them pulled out a disposable camera and began to snap pictures of the treed bears. I raced home to get a camera and then hurried back hoping the bears would still be in the tree. Along the way I passed an excited tourist who told me there were bears in the tree upriver.

Encouraged that photo op remained intact, I charged up river. When I got to the tree, I looked up in anticipation, but the bears were gone! I was told minutes before my arrival a loud motor boat with smelly exhaust approached and so terrified the bears they dashed down the tree and sped into the woods.

Sunrise is the best time to be on the river. It's a time when the black bear, the deer, and the river otter can safely assume they will not be terrorized by the wail of jet skis or gassed by foul smelling exhaust of large outboard motors. Often, I will board my kayak before dawn and be on the river at first light. During these early morning hours, the limbs of trees lining the river fashion fingers of light from the sun's radiance, and on crisp Fall mornings the waters yield their warmth to the cold air and fog forms above the river. Watching the fingers of light attempt to penetrate the rising fog while paddling over the spring waters is a magical experience.

On one such morning on the Wekiva as I passed Buffalo Tram heading toward Shell Island, in the distance, I saw a mother bear and two cubs cross the river. Although I thought that sighting was a once in a lifetime event, the next morning, I spotted a large black bear across the river not more that thirty feet away. I watched as he crossed and got out of the water. He stood on the bank of the river, turned and looked curiously in my direction then ran off into the woods.

Last summer I was paddling in the late afternoon and was caught in a thunder storm. I paddled toward home in the pounding rain. About two hundred yards past the Little Wekiva I rounded a bend in the river and saw something swimming. It was a bear, and I got so close I could hear him breathing. He swam to the shore and disappeared into the woods.

Fifty years ago, the Wekiva River was lined by huge first-growth cypress trees. The loggers took them and all we have left are a few small ones to remind us of the destruction. These days we are told there is a land shortage in Seminole County and that densities must be increased in the Wekiva River Protection Area. Were former generations told that unless the cypress were taken there would be a shortage of building materials? We must not make the mistake they made. It will take hundreds of years for the majestic cypress to again dominate the river banks. If the habitat of the black bear and other wildlife is destroyed they will never return, and our children and grandchildren will forever lose the chance to see the beautiful black bear on the Wekiva.

Biodiversity means the number of species in an area. Standing dead trees, called snags, can be linked to biodiversity. Insects, like termites and beetles, eat the decaying wood of the snags, and insectivorous birds eat the insects. Perhaps even more important is that snags provide hiding places and nest cavities for birds and other animals. Cavities in snags may be natural openings in the dead wood or cavities excavated in the dead wood by woodpeckers. Among the animals in the Wekiva Basin that utilize or once utilized these cavities are American kestrels, eastern screech-owls, great crested flycatchers, eastern bluebirds, Carolina chickadees, southern flying squirrels, gray squirrels, red rat snakes, yellow rat snakes, and treefrogs.

Saving snags for the nest cavities they provide is even more important today than in pre-logging days. Longleaf pine was the South's most sought-after timber tree, aside from cypress, and pine logging was heavy here as late as the l930s. Old longleaf pines develop heart rot, which softens the wood enough so that the red-cockaded woodpecker can make a cavity in it. Abandoned red-cockaded woodpecker cavities are utilized by other woodpecker species and by other animals. Since few old longleaf pines remain throughout the South, the red-cockaded woodpecker is an endangered species. As our post-logging longleaf pines age and develop heart rot in years to come, biologists may consider reintroduction of the red-cockaded woodpecker to the Wekiva Basin. Meanwhile, all of the remaining woodpecker species here excavate cavities in snags. Without red-cockaded wood-peckers creating cavities in living pines, leaving snags becomes even more important.

An example of a snag-nesting woodpecker is the red-headed woodpecker, our showiest woodpeckers (aside from the large crested pileated wood-pecker) with a solid red head, black back, and white belly. Although the red-headed woodpecker is rare elsewhere, populations in the Wekiva Basin GEOPark are fairly high, thanks to the park's policy of saving snags.

Cavity nesters that do not make their own cavities experience acute competition for nest sites, because red-cockaded woodpecker holes are missing and homeowners generally take out their snags. Among the species experiencing difficulty is the eastern bluebird, which uses natural or woodpecker-made cavities. The eastern bluebird is on many bird-watching society's watch lists. Two aggressive bird species from Europe, the European starling and European house sparrow, have out-competed the eastern bluebird for cavity nests in some areas.

A cavity-nesting species that is less common today in the Wekiva Basin than previously is the American kestrel, our smallest raptor. Eastern screech owls may have also been more common in days when more nest cavities were available. Because of acute competition for natural cavities or abandoned woodpecker cavities, birding associations encourage placing wooden nest boxes for bluebirds, eastern screech-owls, American kestrels and great crested flycatchers.

If you've got a dead tree and were planning to take it out, you might want to consider leaving it as a nest site.

Deborah Green is author of "Wekiwa Springs State Park Habitat Tour" and the forthcoming "Watching Wildlife in the Wekiva River Basin."

We are actively solicting articles by members and others with an interest in the Wekiva River. Submissions could include:

1) Any news about ongoing activities concerning development, land acquisition, education, park management, and other issues.

2) Essays from your personal experience on the River and its tributaries.

3) History you are familiar with or have researched about the River.

4) News of FOWR activities, and accomplishments of its members

5) Upcoming "Seasonal" events on the river---What to watch for.

6) Preview of upcoming program/Report about program afterwards.

7) Any 'nature' graphics you have clipped or drawn. No photos please.

We ask that the submissions range from 250 words (which is one, double-spaced typed page) to 750 words. Please send to Editor, Bill Belleville via email if you have it at billybx@gate.net.

• E-mail - FOWR@aol.com
• Fax - (407) 324-8472
• U.S. Mail - Currents, P.O. Box 6196, Longwood, FL 32791-6196
• Phone - (407) 322-8825

If you would like to have every issue of Currents mailed to you, become a member of the Friends of the Wekiva River.

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