USA > Florida > Florida, 1513-1913, past and future; four hundred years of wars and peace and industrial development > Part 16
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The shallow bars, bare at low tide, were covered with hundreds of
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BIRD ROOKERIES IN ESTERO BAY
SOLE ENTRANCE TO MUD HOLE ROOKERY
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut YOUNG WOOD IBIS, CAPE SABLE
YOUNG SNAKE BIRDS OR WATER TURKEYS ON NEST
Vol. I-19
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut
BLACK BUZZARD
YOUNG CORMORANTS, ALLIGATOR BAY ROOKERY
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut NODDY
YOUNG EGRET STARVING, PARENT BIRDS SHOT
FLORIDA WATER FOWL UNDISTURBED
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thousands, yes, millions of plovers, snipe, skimmers, and oyster catchers. Clouds of pelicans, cormorants, frigate birds, gulls and terns swarmed along the coast lines. Wilson's snipe, the golden plover and red-breasted snipe were too common to be considered game birds. Sand-hill cranes and wild turkeys were as abundant as domestic fowl in an inhabited country and scarcely fearcd the approach of man.
The shallow bays lying behind the sand keys were covered with vast swarms of feeding ducks, so careless of man's presence as to admit of a yacht sailing through their great flocks, the birds parting and swimming scarcely ten paces aside from the yacht's course. Wild turkeys often came at daybreak to within a few yards of my camp to gobble at the strange white tents, and many times they stood and gazed wonderingly at us but a few paces distant as we tramped through the dense hammock.
Fish crows perched on the peak of the tents and welcomed us with odd cries as we emerged in the morning. Great flocks of roseate spoonbills roosted in the willow thickets within a hundred yards of us. Our camping grounds were guarded by swarms of black vultures and caracara eagles which fought with the fish crows over the scraps from our cooking. Every morsel of food was pounced upon at once by an eager bird who had to fight with a score of others to retain his prize. Great flocks of wood duck, pin tails, teal, American widgeons and Florida black or dusky ducks fed in the natural meadows along the head waters of the Caloosahatchee and lower Kissimmee. The Florida great blue, or Ward's, heron was in evidence everywhere, while thou- sands of glossy ibis, roseate spoonbills, great white egrets, snowy egrets and other wading birds, nested in many rookeries built among the bushy thickets bordering these same meadows. The custard apple thickets along the margin of Lake Okeechobee sheltered hundreds of thousands of nesting herons, limpkins, and ibis.
The saw-grass savannas teemed with purple gallinules, crackles, bitterns, many species of rail, limpkins and myriads of song birds. Grebes built their curious floating nests in the placid pools and along the borders of currentless channels.
FLORIDA QUAIL
In the open piney woods the Florida quail existed in such profu- sion as was never exceeded by any game bird elsewhere unless it might have been by the valley quail of California in the days of '49. Every- where one went, whether through saw grass, cypress glades, dense ham-
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mock, open piney woods, or along mud flat or sandy beach, by pond, lake, lagoon or down broad placid rivers, the air seemed filled with the joyous music of exuberant wild creatures, the landscape literally col- ored by their enormous flights. And the beauty of it all was their fearlessness of man. Neither the blood-thirsty plume gatherer nor the gunner tourist had as yet entered upon their crusade of ruthless slaughter and extermination.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR ROOKERY
I know of no better way to impress the reader with the abundance of bird life along the Florida coast than to describe my visit to one of the great bird rookeries of Charlotte Harbor in the spring of 1879. I was then camping at Punta Rassa within the shadow of the old Gov- ernment blockhouse. For days I had watched clouds of many colored herons wending their way from all points of the compass towards a large mangrove island that lay several miles to the southwest of the mouth of the Caloosahatchee river.
On a bright morning in early March I set out in a whitehall boat to sail to the bird city. A fresh, yet gentle, south breeze wafted our frail craft along at a goodly pace. As we followed the crooked chan- nels, dodging the treacherous mud flats and ragged oyster reefs, immense schools of pompano, mullett, jack fish, sea trout, Spanish mackerel and other fish lashed the shoal waters into spray. Many of them jumped clean over the boat in their frantic rushes to escape and a few unlucky ones landed in the boat and remained there, while now and then one landed on the scat and bounded back into the water.
As we neared the bird metropolis a jumble of discordant cries came faintly across the water, soon breaking into deafening babble as we continued our approach. The crests of the bush-like mangroves were thickly spotted with various colored herons. In some parts the bushes were whitened with thousands of snowy herons, the effect re- sembling that of a cotton field in full crop. In other places the reddish gray of the reddish egret prevailed. Again the deep blue of the little blue heron variegated with the piebald colors of its juvenile birds pro- duced the effect of a patchwork or crazy quilt.
The snowy heron, the Louisiana heron, little blue heron and red- dish egret each had appropriated sections of the low growing red man- groves and nested in colonies by themselves. At one end of the island a great colony of tipped ibis held full control of a large area of the dwarf mangroves. The taller growing black mangroves, which arose
Courtesy Herbert K, Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut
YOUNG BROWN PELICANS-PELICAN ISLAND
BIRDS PICKED UP AFTER RAID OF PLUME HUNTERS-ALLIGATOR BAY ROOKERY
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut
BLACK SKIMMERS
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut
SOOTY TERNS, BIRD KEY
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut WARD'S HERON, YOUNG
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut YOUNG GREAT WHITE HERON READY TO FLY
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut TURN STONE
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut LAUGHING GULLS
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut
YOUNG OYSTER CATCHER
WOOD DUCK
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to the dignity of trees along the central portion of the island a few yards distant from the water's edge, were occupied by many thou- sands of great American egrets, and perched here and there in the tallest tops were nests of the great white heron ( Ardea occidentalis), and the Florida great bluc heron ( Ardea herodias Wardi). Scattered throughout various portions of the island separated from the other nesting birds, were small colonies of yellow-crowned night herons.
Through that portion of the island which the birds had appropri- ated for their nesting grounds, every crotch or fork or branch that would support a nest was occupied, unless two vantage points were so close together that the birds could strike each other while sitting on the nests, as it is the habit of all these birds to place their nests at suffi- cient distance from each other that a quarrelsome neighbor can not reach an adjoining bird sitting on his nest. They seem to demand at least that much elbow room, or it might be called neck room.
The island, upwards of eighty acres in extent, was nearly all occu- pied by the rookery. A count of all the nests in a small section showed that there were many more than one hundred thousand nests of birds of all kinds on the island.
FISH CROW ROBBERS
The first time I visited this rookery very few young birds were hatched, a great majority of the nests containing eggs, while a few belated birds were still building their homes. On this occasion I noticed especially the swarm of fish crows that infested the rookery and kept a keen watch upon the nests which the birds never left unguarded. As we landed and walked towards the center of the island, our presence frightened a number of the birds away and at once the miserable robber crows dashed in and carried the eggs away. With my companion I advanced to the center of the island and sat down to watch the birds. As soon as we had seated ourselves the birds that were driven from the nests by our approach immediately returned and drove off the crows.
Upon the second visit practically all of the young had been hatched and some of them far enough advanced to stand upon the nests and gaze wonderingly at us. At this time I noticed that the older birds hung much closer to the nests than they did before the young were hatched, but in a few instances where we approached very closely, the parents left the nests for a few moments. We again saw the fish crows pounce upon the smaller birds and carry them away.
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ENORMOUS AGGREGATES OF BIRD LIFE
A conservative calculation of the number of old and young birds in that rookery at that time was five hundred thousand-three hundred thousand young and two hundred thousand parent birds, and it is possible that a correct count of every individual would have disclosed from six hundred thousand to three-quarters of a million old and young birds of all descriptions. This was the largest rookery I visited during my travels in Florida, although there were other sections that contained fully as many, if not more, birds than Charlotte Harbor. At that time there must have been more than two dozen nesting rook- eries, large and small, in Charlotte Harbor alone.
Estero Bay, the first enclosed sheet of water south of Charlotte Harbor, contained from twelve to fifteen rookeries of various sizes. Farther on down the coast were much larger rookeries than that in Charlotte Harbor, and in the vicinity of Marco among the Ten Thou- sand islands the roseate spoonbill existed, I was told, in immense quantities in addition to enormous congregations of herons, ibis and other wading birds. Tales of an immense rookery of flamingoes some- where east of Cape Sable also reached me. In fact, the mullet fishermen who traversed up and down the coast, reported that the mangrove region along the whole west coast of Florida contained a continuous line of bird rookeries from Tampa to the southernmost point of the peninsula, and the same was true of the east coast. The central portion of the state, especially along the Kissimmee river and throughout the Everglades, contained numerous nesting rookeries for the wading birds which had not yet been disturbed by the plume hunter or the hunter tourist.
DESTRUCTION OF SIX YEARS
Again I visited Punta Rassa in 1886, remaining in that section of Florida for two months, during which time I made excursions among the rookeries of Charlotte Harbor, Estero Bay and a trip up the Caloo- sahatchee river to the Hicpochee region. The great bird rookery at the entrance of Matlacha had almost disappeared; less than two hun- dred nests were observed and these were mostly of little blue herons and Louisiana herons. Not a single nest of the great American egret or of the great white heron, and less than half a dozen nests of the snowy heron were seen. The same condition obtained at practically all of the rookeries which I visited in Charlotte Harbor and Estero
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f
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut
MAN-O-WAR BIRDS-FLORIDA KEYS
GULLS AND PELICANS IN FLIGHT BEFORE A STORM
-
ROYAL TERNS NESTING
WHITE IBIS-ROOSTING
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Bay. In the six years, from 1880 to 1886, the plume hunter had prac- tically wiped out the white plumed birds along the southwest coast of Florida.
Along that section of the Caloosahatchee, between Fort Thompson and Lake Hicpochee where thousands upon thousands of birds were nesting and feeding in 1879, only a few Ward's herons, Louisiana herons and little blue herons were observed. The roseate spoonbill had disappeared entirely. Less than two dozen specimens of the great American egret and the snowy heron were seen. The tipped ibis still existed in quantities for the reason that they had not been sought for their plumes. Very few purple gallinules were observed. The Carolina parakeet and the ivory-billed woodpecker had disap- peared entirely.
CONTRASTS OF TWELVE YEARS
During the month of December, 1912, in company with Dr. T. S. Palmer, assistant chief of the Biological Survey, Department of Agri- culture, Washington, District of Columbia, I made a trip from Fort Myers up the Caloosahatchee river, across Lake Okeechobee and down the drainage canal to Fort Lauderdale, for the purpose of observing the remnant of bird life still in that section of Florida. Two months also were spent cruising along the Florida coast from Tampa south Cape Sable, for the purpose of observing wild life conditions.
It was too early in the season to locate any nesting rookeries, but I found a tremendous decrease in bird life throughout every section of Florida that I visited. There were still large numbers of wood ibis and tipped ibis along the Caloosahatchee between Lake Okeechobee and Fort Thompson, as well as a goodly number of teal, Florida dusky and pin-tail ducks, but the plovers and snipe had decreased tre- mendously, although there were still enough of them to attract atten- tion. In fact, we found that the section between Fort Thompson and Lake Hicpochee was the richest in bird life of any section of Florida visited at that time.
In Lake Hicpochee and in crossing Lake Okeechobee very large flocks of scaup and ring neck ducks were observed and we judged there were half a million fowl of that kind along the route we took. A short time after entering the canal, which extends from Lake Okee- chobee to Fort Lauderdale, we came into a section of the Everglades where the Florida dusky duck existed in quantities. Considerable numbers of limpkins and American bitterns were also seen, and pos-
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sibly two dozen examples of the great American egret. During the entire trip from Fort Thompson to Fort Lauderdale, but two or three snowy herons were seen. As we neared Fort Lauderdale bird life became exceedingly scarce. The great white egret disappeared en- tirely and only an occasional Ward's heron was seen.
THE FAMINE OF BIRD LIFE
During this trip ninety-six different species of birds of all descrip- tions were recognized, the larger part of them being observed between Fort Thompson and Lake Hicpochee. On several trips along the coast from Punta Rassa to Cape Sable a number of the old nesting places which existed in such profusion in 1880, were examined. Throughout this entire section the great American egret, the great white heron, the snowy heron, the flamingo and the roseate spoonbill had practically disappeared. At the Pink Curlew bar, a few miles south of Marco, where in 1880 the roseate spoonbill and the flamingo fed by tens of thousands, but five of the latter were observed. Not a single flamingo was seen during the entire trip and but two snowy herons and one great American egret was discovered. While lying at anchor a few miles up the Shark river from the mouth during a storm, a flight of several thousand little blue and Louisiana herons were seen passing from the feeding grounds to the resting places.
I penetrated the Everglades for a few miles at the upper end of Shark river and saw less than half a dozen herons. We passed through one of the great nesting places of 1880 and no one would have suspected that a heron of any description had ever nested in that vicinity. Less than half a dozen night herons and two or three little blue herons were all that we observed. The bird rookeries along the coast from Punta Rassa to Cape Sable consisted chiefly of small col- onies of brown pelicans, cormorants, tipped ibis and little blue and Louisiana herons. Not a single reddish egret was seen.
PROTECTED ROOKERIES
In the northerly end of Charlotte Harbor half a dozen rookeries somewhat widely scattered from each other have been set aside in three national bird reservations and have been protected for a num- ber of years by the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Audubon Society, and here I found that the little blue and the Louisiana herons, the pelican and tipped ibis were gradually in-
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HERON PROTECTING EGGS FROM SUN
SNOWY AND LITTLE BLUE HERONS
WHITE HERON AND NEST
IBIS ON NEST
DIEDIPPERS NEST
YOUNG BROWN PELICANS
YOUNG WARD'S HERON
Courtesy A. W. Dimock PELICAN
YOUNG LIMPKIN
Courtesy A. W. Dimock
YOUNG LOUISIANA HERON
YOUNG EGRETS, ALLIGATOR BAY ROOKERY
Courtesy Herbert K. Job, State Ornithologist, Connecticut LOUISIANA HERON INCUBATING
GREAT AMERICAN EGRET. GOOD NESTING BIRD
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creasing and the wardens reported the snowy heron as again coming back to nest in small numbers. In Tampa Bay two or three rookeries, now national bird reservations, have also been similarly protected for several years and here again we found the pelicans, cormorants, gulls, terns, herons and tipped ibis on the increase. The warden reported that a few snowy herons were coming in and beginning to nest. In both these localities I was informed by the warden that if the birds were protected and not shot out for their plumes, they would gradu- ally return to their nesting places and within a period of ten or fifteen years the snowy heron and great American egret and all the herons and water birds would increase to such an extent as to renew the abundance of these beautiful birds, which existed in that section of Florida in the early 80's.
ALLIGATOR BAY ROOKERY
Encouraged by these results, in conjunction with the National Audubon Society and the citizens of Fort Myers and Marco, a plan was formed to protect the Alligator Bay Rookery, which at the pres- ent time is the chief nesting place left in Florida of the remnant of the great American egret and snowy heron. Several wardens were placed to watch the rookery and the feeding grounds, and at the date of this writing, May, 1913, reports indicate that several hundred great American egrets and snowy herons have nested and are rearing their young. If this protection of rookcries during the nesting season can be successfully extended along the coast, Florida's original bird life will be largely restored in the course of ten to fifteen or twenty years, and one of the state's most attractive features to the tourist will be replaced. Such a result would bring an immense increase of northern travel to Florida and redound greatly to the financial gain of the state, as the majority of tourists are money spenders, many of them leaving several hundred dollars behind them.
It is great error to permit the wild life of any state to be destroyed and the gunning tourists will eventually prove to be but a small por- tion of the visitors to Florida. The amount they spend is small com- pared with the amount spent by the general traveler. The great income from tourists will be derived from people who do not shoot, who do not kill, but are attracted to Florida by the wealth of its wild life, by the rare and beautiful birds which exist nowhere else in the United States and which will not long exist in Florida unless adequate measures are soon taken to prevent their extermination.
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PUBLIC SENTIMENT AS A PROTECTION
The measures necessary to preserve the bird life of Florida are simple and can be effectively put in force, provided public sentiment is once aroused to demand such preservation. And in order to secure effective action, public sentiment must be aroused against the destruc- tion of the birds and against the use of bird plumage. Women, whose demands for bird plumage for personal adornment bring the birds commercially in great demand, could prove themselves the greatest factor in bird conservation by entering into a voluntary crusade against wearing hats decorated with such plumage.
Laws prohibiting bird destruction are of little use unless backed by the support of a united public sentiment. As the matter now stands, a few plume hunters and dealers in bird skins gather a few thousand dollars annually from the slaughter of egrets and the sale of their plumage. A hundred tourists will spend five times the amount realized from all bird plumes taken and sold, and if the birds are pro- tected and finally restored to anything like their former abundance, these hundreds of tourists will eventually increase to thousands and the citizens of Florida will be benefited by the annual expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars, where now but a few thousands are realized from a handful of plume hunters. And what is of quite as much importance, many of these tourists will become infatuated with the magnificent climate, the abundance of wild life, the opportunities for the profitable culture of citrus fruits and of vegetables for north- ern markets, will invest in winter homes, thus adding their quota to the wealth, the population and the permanent prosperity of the state.
WILD LIFE CONSERVATION
To the citizens of Florida wild life conservation means much, very much more than the sentimental preservation of a few colonies of herons. It means adding to the material prosperity of the state, increasing its population and wealth and assisting to make the state the most attractive section in the entire Union for winter residents.
In order to preserve Florida's bird life and restore it to its orig- . inal splendor, a number of wild life refuges should be established at various points throughout the state, because such refuges are par- ticularly valuable in preserving all those gregarious species of birds which assemble in great colonies to nest.
WARDEN'S CAMP, ALLIGATOR BAY ROOKERY
ONE OF MANY NESTING ISLANDS, ALLIGATOR BAY ROOKERY
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The United States Government has already established more bird refuges in Florida than in any other state in the Union. The princi- pal refuges created by the National Government are located in Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor and on the east coast in the vieinity of Indian river. The National Audubon Society also has a refuge on Orange Lake, in Marion county, and on all these reservations the birds are now effectually protected. The inhabitants of the islands separating Charlotte Harbor from the gulf and extending from Gasparilla Pass to San Carlos Pass, are anxious to have these islands converted into a state wild-life refuge and the slaughter of their beautiful birds stopped. Their wishes should be respected.
Another wild-life refuge should be established along both banks of the Caloosahatchee river from Fort Thompson to Lake Hiepochee and around the margins of Lakes Okeechobee and Hicpochee, and the slaughter of wild birds therein prohibited.
LEGISLATION NEEDED
Motor boats using any of the rivers, eanals, lagoons or navigable waters of Florida should not be permitted to carry firearms used for the slaughter of birds. The killing of all species of wading birds should be prohibited throughout all of the Mangrove keys on the Gulf coast, as well as on the Atlantic coast of Florida. An extensive wild-life refuge should be established including the islands and man- grove keys from Estero Bay southwards to Cape Sable. Another extensive nesting refuge should be started on the site of the famous bird rookery east of Cape Sable.
The birds which have been destroyed most rapidly are those nest- ing in great colonies and whose plumage is in greatest demand for millinery purposes. Therefore, in addition to establishing a eompre- hensive system of bird refuges, it should be unlawful to kill all plum- age and inseetiverous birds at all times. It should be unlawful to sell the plumage of such birds or to ship such plumage or to send it through the United States mails. It should also be unlawful for any trans- portation company to carry bird plumage and it should be unlawful for any individual to wear such plumage, and the possession of for- bidden bird plumage should be prima facie evidence of guilt, insur- ing convietion and adequate punishment. It should also be unlawful to enter bird rookeries during nesting seasons.
The citizens of Florida ean not afford to sit idly by and allow the great natural resource of its magnificent wild birds to be destroyed.
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Once exterminated they can never be reproduced. Protected now and allowed to increase naturally they will again people the waste places and valueless mangrove islands and useless sandy beeches, And the vast stretches of sea coast and marsh, oyster reef and sand bar should harbor great flocks of shore birds and waders. Nearly every species of plover and snipe should be found within her borders during some season of the year. The great annual flights of migratory song birds should pass undisturbed to and fro throughout the length of the state during their seasons of movement.
The shallow bays, sounds and inlets should support millions of wild fowl, and among the mangrove islands and sandy beaches border- ing the gulf and the Atlantic, the avocct, shear water, oyster catcher and all the species of gulls and terns should breed unmolested and nest undisturbed. The immense flights of pelicans, frigate birds, ospreys, and water fowl should again be restored to her coast.
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