2015 A-Z April Challenge - E is for Everglades National Park

Day 5 of the 2015 A-Z April Challenge and E is for Everglades National Park.  I grew up in South Florida and have loved the mystery of the Everglades for as long as I can remember.  I have always felt the spirits of the Everglades calling me....and I have answered that call many times.  It is an amazing trip.  Everglades National Park is a U.S. National Park in Florida that protects the southern 20 percent of the original Everglades. In the United States, it is the largest tropical wilderness, the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River, and is visited on average by one million people each year. It is the third-largest national park in the lower 48 states after Death Valley and Yellowstone. It has been declared an International Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site, and a Wetland of International Importance, one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.  Although most U.S. national parks preserve unique geographic features, Everglades National Park was the first created to protect a fragile ecosystem. The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing .25 miles (0.40 km) per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay.  The Park is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America, contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere, is home to 36 threatened or protected species including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee, and supports 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles. When I was a child my dad would take me fishing in Lake Okeechobee and I always dreamed about going into the Everglades.  It was a forboding place....a place of no return in the eyes of a child.  The majority of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park.  Humans have lived for thousands of years in or around the Everglades, until plans arose in 1882 to drain the wetlands and develop the recovered land for agricultural and residential use. As the 20th century progressed, water flow from Lake Okeechobee was increasingly controlled and diverted to enable explosive growth of the South Florida metropolitan area. The park was established in 1934 to protect the quickly vanishing Everglades, and dedicated in 1947 as massive canal building projects were initiated across South Florida. The ecosystems in Everglades National Park have suffered significantly from human activity, and restoration of the Everglades is a politically charged issue in South Florida.  If you ever get a chance you need to take an airboat tour of the "glades."  It is an experience you will never forget.  For some strange reason once you have entered the "glades" they will haunt you forever.....or at least until you return.