The Florida black bear resides in the Okefenokee Swamp region, along with herons, egrets, bitterns, cranes, woodpeckers, toads, frogs, snakes, turtles, and lizards. There are miles of water trails in the Okefenokee Swamp that can be enjoyed by boaters and paddlers.
Most of the swamp is on average 2 feet to ten feet deep. For almost 25 years beginning in the Okefenokee Swamp was logged for its very old cypress, red bay, and pine trees.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt put a stop to it in when he protected the area from logging. A mix of geological events, environmental variables, and human impact has shaped the character of the Okefenokee Swamp. More than sixty-five million years ago, during the Cretaceous geological period, the region was beneath the sea. Marine sediments produced a deep layer of sandy, nutrient-poor soils. In more recent geologic times the depression forming the basin of the present-day Okefenokee Swamp was presumably created by wave action associated with an offshore sandbar.
In logging operations beginning in and lasting for a quarter of a century, thousands of cypress, pine, and red bay trees were removed from the swamp. Some were among the largest and oldest individuals of their kind left in the country. In U. Roosevelt provided official protection from logging and development by establishing the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, which constitutes about 80 percent of the swamp. The absence of roads helps to maintain the integrity of the swamp ecosystem; canoe trails are the primary travel routes through the swamp.
In the subtropical climate, rainfall is approximately fifty inches a year and is the source of most of the water entering the swamp from the more than 1, square miles of upland watershed. The clear, tannin-stained, highly acidic waters of the Okefenokee generally are shallow, normally ranging up to depths of less than ten feet and averaging only two feet. Most about 85 percent of the water leaving the Okefenokee is carried by the Suwannee River to the Gulf Coast of Florida.
The St. Marys River, which flows into the Atlantic, drains the remainder of the swamp. Because of its immensity and its physical and chemical attributes, the Okefenokee Swamp has a blend of habitats that results in a high diversity of environments and mixture of plant species. Grasses, sedges, ferns, and rushes thrive in the drier areas; water lilies, pickerel weed, yellow-eyed grass, and golden club are found in wetter sites. Many kinds of shrubs and trees grow on approximately seventy floating mats of peat known as tree islands.
Evergreen shrubs such as fetterbush and dahoon holly are common in some areas. The low-nutrient and acidic conditions have created ideal habitats for carnivorous plants, which attract, capture, and digest animals to compensate. Several species of large pitcher plants as well as smaller sundews and butterworts, which capture insects with a gluelike surface film on their leaves, are scattered throughout the swamp.
Also present are bladderworts, aquatic carnivorous plants with tiny air-filled traps, called bladders, which snap shut when mosquito larvae or zooplankton trip the hair trigger. Virtually all species of wading birds and waterfowl native to the Southeast can be found in the Okefenokee in some season. Wood storks, blue herons, and white ibises are common sightings.
Buffleheads, blue-winged teals, and other ducks are winter visitors. Purple gallinules and least bitterns are more common during the summer. During spring and autumn, many species of migratory birds pass through the swamp en route to or from warmer southern regions. The Okefenokee Swamp is the year-round home of many bird species, such as the wood duck, in which males sport a multicolored breeding plumage.
Another is the sandhill crane whose seven-foot wingspread and bugling in flight provide one of the most magnificent spectacles of sight and sound to be found among native wildlife. In spring and autumn, a variety of migratory birds stop over in the swamp on their way to or from tropical America or southern Florida. Collectively, the bird life brings the swamp alive year-round with its diversity of sounds and visual displays.
While the birds provide the daytime music, the frogs keep nighttime in the Okefenokee alive with sound. More than 20 species of frogs and toads inhabit the great swamp.
Each makes a unique sound characteristic of the particular species. We need not go to the tropics or other exotic regions to experience a wide diversity of calls from the frog world. Almost everyone knows what a bullfrog looks like and has some idea what it sounds like, a bass drum set to music.
But the pig frog, almost indistinguishable superficially from the bullfrog in both size and appearance, holds the franchise in the Okefenokee. Its grunt-like mating call is unmistakably different from its close relative, but not much different from a hog. The snorting of pig frogs can be heard from aquatic habitats throughout the swamp during much of the year. Another Okefenokee frog, closely related to pig frogs and bullfrogs, is the river frog.
Its deep snoring would never be confused with the other two. The call of the male leopard frogs, which are common amphibians throughout the swamp, is variously described as chuckles or the sound a balloon makes when you squeeze it. The bronze frog, or green frog, which looks like a small bullfrog, has a call that is usually just one loud note, sounding like a single pluck of a banjo. The calls of the toads found in the Okefenokee Swamp are as varied as those of the frogs.
The word "toad" conjures up an image of a squat, brown, warty-looking creature, yet the calling males of some species make beautiful music. The southern toad gives a pleasant musical call, a melodic trill often heard from the Okefenokee wetlands on warm rainy evenings of spring and summer, belying the appearance of the caller. The bleating of the narrow-mouthed toad sounds not unlike a sheep, and the harsh din created by hundreds of eastern spadefoot toads calling after a downpour creates an unnerving sound in a dark swamp.
Ten members of the treefrog family live in the Okefenokee Swamp, including the green tree frog, or cowbell frog, which makes a honking sound familiar to anyone who visits southern lakes or ponds in warm weather.
The barking tree frog, when in large choruses, can sound like a distant dog pack, another of the many night sounds of the swamp that can make a visit memorable.
Some species of frogs found in the Okefenokee breed and make their mating calls in the colder months of the year.
On any rainy winter night, especially one that is not too cold, one can hear chorus frogs around small wetlands. The southern chorus frog sounds like someone running a thumb over a comb. The ornate chorus frog's call sounds like a metallic peep. The most familiar of the chorus frogs is the spring peeper, which gives its peeping call in early spring in the North, but in the Okefenokee should be called the winter peeper.
Although frogs can be heard in every month of the year in the Okefenokee Swamp, late spring and summer are when the frog orchestras really tune up. As many as a dozen different species can be heard on rainy summer nights around the undisturbed wetlands. One of the exciting features of being in a region with a rich biodiversity of birds and frogs is not only what you might see but what you might hear. But the Okefenokee is full of animal wildlife that you almost never hear and seldom see.
Sixteen different kinds of salamanders populate the swamp system. Included are the two permanently aquatic giant salamanders that resemble eels. One is the amphiuma, sometimes called the Congo eel, with four tiny legs; the other is the greater siren, which lacks hind limbs but has two front legs behind a pair of feathery gills. Both reach maximum lengths of more than 3. Most of the amphibians of the Okefenokee, both frogs and salamanders, are dependent on the fluctuating wetlands for egg laying and larval development.
Fish are often absent, at least part of the time, from wetland pools that fill and dry, an important consideration for small, soft-bodied creatures that would make an easy meal. Two of the salamander species that occur in the swamp, the flatwoods salamander and the striped newt, are of special concern to One conservationists because of their disappearance in many parts of their geographic ranges.
The Okefenokee serves as a sanctuary for such animals. Representatives of 14 different families of fishes swim in the waterways, pools, and cypress swamps.
The number of fish species is not especially high relative to the other lakes and streams of the region, but the species present constitute a diverse array. At least 36 species of freshwater fishes have been reported from the swamp, including the Florida gar, American eel, and the Okefenokee pygmy sunfish that seldom reaches a length of more than an inch and a quarter.
The large, primitive bowfins, which are represented by more species in the fossil record than occur today, live in the clear, vegetated waters alongside the smaller redfin and chain pickerels. Five species of catfishes can be found in the swamp as can nearly a dozen members of the sunfish family.
Like all animals and plants in the Okefenokee, the fishes inhabit a special environment by today's standards, a healthy natural habitat that is destined to remain so, as far as human interference goes, as a result of the vigorous standards of environmental protection. A select few of the more than 60 species of reptiles native to the Okefenokee Swamp help establish the aura and myth associated with most southern swamplands.
American alligators and venomous snakes, of which five species exist in the Okefenokee, set the tone. However, if the Okefenokee has a keystone species of animal, or one that rises above the rest in stature, it is the alligator.
Alligators and other crocodilians demonstrate behavioral characteristics that are unique among the reptiles. For example, their maternal behavior includes nest-guarding and fierce protection of the young, and they communicate vocally among individuals.
The formidable nature of alligators, with their big teeth and powerful jaw muscles, should not be underestimated. Nor should a potential swipe from the muscular tail of an adult alligator. Many people's attitude about the danger of alligators and snakes in a swamp is based more on imagination than on reality.
In most instances, the opportunity for humans to experience any of the alligator's weapons firsthand will come only to those who attempt to capture one.
Under natural conditions, alligators are usually shy, retiring creatures that generally mind their own business, which does not include promoting encounters with humans. One conspicuous exception occurs. A female American alligator will often exhibit extensive and complex maternal care and protection of her nest or young. Mother alligators guard their offspring, and alligator attacks on humans are often a result of a powerful drive for the female to take care of her eggs or babies.
Threat displays by female alligators are probably the most common form of apparent aggressive behavior that most people observe. Open-mouthed displays, hissing, and even emergence onto land are common when a mother alligator feels her progeny are in danger. Swamp dwellers were told they could no longer kill bears and wildcats in order to protect their livestock. The residents found it impossible to support themselves, and over time they moved away. All residents were likely gone by The size of the refuge has increased over the years.
In the government purchased , additional acres. Today the refuge comprises , acres. For the first several decades the staff at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge devoted much of its time to maintaining roads and facilities and protecting wildlife from poachers.
Since the s the U. Fish and Wildlife Service has focused on managing the habitat for wildlife through fire management and by protecting and fostering endangered and threatened wildlife species.
Recreation and environmental education have also become more important functions at the refuge. Development of the Suwannee Canal Recreation Area, on the eastern edge of the swamp, began in the mids.
Fluctuations of water levels, even minute changes, have a significant effect on the Okefenokee ecosystem. After the drought and wildfires of , the federal government constructed an earthen dam, the Suwannee River Sill, on the western side of the swamp to maintain water levels during drought.
It was not effective. Plans to breach the sill are being implemented. Camp Stephen Foster was established in as a private concession within the refuge. The state of Georgia acquired the concession as Stephen C. Foster State Park in In , , acres of the refuge were included in the National Wilderness System. A Wilderness Canoe Trail system was instituted in the s.
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an international convention that promotes the preservation of waterfowl habitat, recognized the Okefenokee as a wetland of international importance in The fire was maintained by drought conditions and forty smaller fires across the region, which were mostly started by careless burning and arson. The fire was finally contained in late June There were no casualties, but nine homes were lost. On April 28, , another lightning strike in the Okefenokee Swamp ignited a massive wildfire called the Honey Prairie Fire.
The fire burned more than , acres in the swamp over the course of three months. Trowell, C. Human History of the Okefenokee Swamp. In New Georgia Encyclopedia. It has a long history as a wilderness, a public…. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.
Requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource may need to be submitted to the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Cypress swamps, winding waterways, and floating peat mats are a major part of the Okefenokee's habitat mosaic. View on source site.
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