Florida Keys celebrates 100 years of successful conservation effort
Last updated 11/20/2008 7:28:58 PM
Conservation effort started by then-President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 has proven very successful a century later. Photo © www.fla-keys.co.uk
Florida Keys celebrates a century of conservation effort in November, demonstrating the region’s commitment to environmental stewardship.
In 1908, in response to a fashion trend that was decimating migratory bird populations, then-President Theodore Roosevelt created the Key West National Wildlife Refuge to protect and preserve a breeding ground for migratory species.
“The plume trading industry was so lucrative that in 1903 an ounce of bird feathers was worth $32 — twice the price of gold,” said Anne Morkill, event organizer and manager of the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges Complex.
“Adult birds were hunted, resulting in abandoned nests and destroyed eggs of snowy egrets, herons, pelicans and many others.”
Today, the Key West National Wildlife Refuge provides nesting, roosting and foraging habitat for more than 250 species of migratory birds such as the roseate tern, osprey, bald eagle and magnificent frigate bird.
It also protects critical nesting habitat for endangered marine turtles and host plants for the rare Miami Blue butterfly.
The Florida Keys also home to United States’ only living coral barrier reef. The extraordinary reef ecosystem, much like a tropical rainforest, supports a unique diversity of plants and animals.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was established off the Upper Keys in 1963 as America’s first underwater preserve, to protect a portion of this reef.
Pennekamp is a part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, a 2,800 square nautical miles area covering the entire land mass of the Florida Keys, a vast stretches of Florida Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. floridakeys.noaa.gov.