appreciating our wilder side

It’s time. You’re here, the dry season is upon us, you can still breathe in and out, and you have two legs under you.

Best of all, you’re flanked by hundreds of thousands of acres of public land stretching from southern Collier across Lee and into Charlotte County — “the woods” as oldtimers here call them — inhabited by many of the same creatures who reigned supreme when much of the region was a vast and

trackless wilderness, and John James Audubon struggled into the state’s interior.

What’s to stop you from going face to face with a few? Here, you’ll find the anecdotes of experts and the truncated biographies of beasts — animals you might still have a chance to see with your own eyes, just as Mr. Audubon did.

The 56-year-old ornithologist and artist first set foot in the Sunshine State in November of 1831. For the next six months he wandered across the central and southeastern portions of the peninsula, suffering and learning. On foot and from horseback, canoe, skiff, cutter and schooner, he tracked down 52 birds he’d never seen before, each of which became part of his portrait of 1,062 birds in 489 species he detailed in the three-volume “Birds of America,” according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

TETZLAFF He didn’t like it much, apparently.

“Reader,” he explained, “if you have not been in such a place, then you cannot easily conceive the torments we endured” from mosquitoes and sand fleas, among others.

“We are surrounded by thousands of alligators and I dare not suffer my… good Newfoundland Dog Plato to go in the River,” he noted elsewhere.

But one man’s frustration is another person’s happy fancy, which is why

FLORIDA CRESTED CARACARA: Florida Weekly celebrates not just the places where the wild things are , but the creatures themselves.

“We have these areas, they’re here, and it disturbs me personally that there’s not enough appreciation for them and for what’s out there,” says David Tetzlaff, executive director of the Naples Zoo. “Unless you appreciate something, you don’t want to protect it. A lot of people come here, they do Orlando, and they think they’ve seen Florida. That’s not Florida, that’s plastic.”

But in Florida — the animate rather than the plastic Florida — there are currently 116 species listed either as Threatened, Endangered or as Species of Special Concern, including 15 fish, five amphibians, 24 reptiles, 34 birds, 30 mammals, and eight invertebrates.

One in particular, a long-distance migratory creature known as PPJ 739 — is a loggerhead turtle. Dave Addison, a biologist for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, has been tracking and studying PPJ 739 for 20 years on Keewaydin Island off the coast of Naples, where she returns every three or four years to nest.

FLORIDA BLACK BEAR: “It’s been a remarkable journey,” Mr. Addison says of his work with sea turtles. “They’re a compelling animal. They give you more than you could ever imagine. They don’t talk the way we do, but if you’re patient and persistent, they’ll open the door and give you a peek at wildness, at what their lives are like. They show us that the ocean may not be as trackless as we think.”

In the case of PPJ 739, as of last week, she’d traveled 3,302 kilometers or about 2,000 miles in the 154 days she’d been tracked since her last visit. (Such tracking takes money, Mr. Addison reminds, inviting any who wish to contribute to the cause. PPJ 739 can be tracked online at www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index. shtml?project_id=410.)

DIAMONDBACK TERRAPIN: She swam across Florida Bay, got caught in the Gulf stream and carried north to Bimini, and then “made a right hand turn and swam along the west coast of Andros Island before settling out, not too far from the edge of the Tongue of the Ocean on the Great Bahama Bank,” Mr. Addison reports. He expects her to move again.

“In the time we’ve known her (21 years), she’s laid 34 nests that we know of, and she averages about 116 or 117 eggs per nest,” he says. “She’s laid 3,561 eggs in those years, and 2,852 hatched and got to the water. About one in a thousand will reach sexual maturity, which takes a turtle about 25 years. So if we project her nesting numbers out, and let’s say she has 30 years of reproduction capacity once she’s reached maturity, she’ll lay about 6,000 eggs. About 4,000 will hatch.”

FLORIDA PANTHER: That’s one way to look at wild things, and there are others, some of them more ephemeral, more fleeting.

Mike Owen, the wildlife biologist in the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, once spent 38 minutes in the company of a few visitors watching a treed panther at mile 8.3 on Janes Scenic Drive.

“One guy pulled up in a truck, and I got that question you always get: ‘What is there to see here?’” Mr. Owen told

Florida Weekly last month. “And for the first and only time in my career, I was able to say, ‘If you pull off and come back to us quietly, you’ll see a panther 25 feet above your truck.’”

EASTERN INDIGO SNAKE That could happen to anybody, really — anybody who wanders out into the woods here. They’re still pretty wild after all, even though it’s been 178 years since Mr. Audubon sampled Florida and everything seems to have changed. Of the creatures he might have seen in the Fakahatchee Strand had he ever journeyed there, only the ivory-billed woodpecker, the Carolina parakeet and the red wolf (which still exists in North Carolina), have vanished forever from Southwest Florida, Mr. Owen says.

Brenda Brooks, the versatile executive director of the 60,000-acre CREW Land & Water Trust, suggests worrying about what remains, not what doesn’t. And in her case, at least one bobcat — considered the fiercest cat in nature, pound for pound — still remains in the CREW lands because of her.

“We were on a prescribed burn one day doing a parallel burn (Ms. Brooks is a certified burner) and I was working one edge of the marsh, trying to keep a parallel line of fire with somebody out of sight on the other edge,” she recalls.

“Suddenly I heard a sound similar to that of a snake eating a frog (a high mournful squeal, drawn out), and I wasn’t real comfortable with it, so I walked into the brush to see. And here was this little baby bobcat, yelling and yelling and yelling. I’d let my fire line get a few feet behind, and the burn boss got on the radio and said, ‘Brenda, get your fire going forward.’

“But I thought, ‘I can’t light this thing, not with this little cat here.’ Every time I reached down for it, it scurried away, and yet it kept walking back toward me, which was very unusual.”

So Ms. Brooks put on a heavy glove and captured it — but not before it sunk its teeth right through the glove and into her knuckles. “I’ve never had so much fun being bitten by a wild animal,” she insists.

She finished the burn, kept the little cat overnight, and then took it back to the area the next day, theorizing that the mother had taken another kitten out of the path of the fire and planned to come back for her lost one.

Which turned out to be right. The following morning, the little cat was gone, and her mother’s fresh tracks appeared all around the area.

Mr. Tetzlaff, who spends his free time away from the Naples Zoo and its generous new black bear habitat (the largest in the U.S.) looking at real black bears and many other creatures, urges care and respect — not fear — in the woods, something he was reminded of again last week when news of a lost hunter became public.

“You have to appreciate nature but not take anything for granted,” he explains. “I hope to God they find this guy because (the Everglades) would be a nasty place to die. There’s a good oldfashioned learning curve, and you have to pay attention.

“For me, one of the primary rules is that when you’re walking through the woods, don’t step over logs. Step on the logs, and look what’s on the other side.”

A few years ago while bow hunting, he stepped over a log without thinking about it, he admits, and put his foot down next to a large cottonmouth. The venomous snake was “gaping,” with its mouth wide open.

“I slowly moved my foot to the side, and walked on, so I was lucky. He could have nailed me,” Mr. Tezlaff says.

Another thing to keep in mind, he adds: “We have two large carnivores out there, and we can’t forget that. There are more than 100 cougars now, and the bear population numbers 500 to 700 bears. I don’t want people to be afraid of these things, but respect them.

“These are the same two species you have out West, where these things will hurt you. You can’t forget that. In the Big Cypress, you can’t carry a firearm if you aren’t hunting, so I’ll carry pepper spray. These are mega predators and they can’t be taken lightly. I’ve seen a number of bears, and sometimes they weren’t afraid of me. I spotted one last year and he was huge, maybe 500 pounds. I was glad he ran the other way.”

This bear was so big, he recalls, “that at first my brain did not register ‘BEAR!’”

But it certainly must have registered Wild Thing.

And that’s an experience not to be missed. 

some of SWFL’s wild things

FLORIDA CRESTED CARACARA:

 Scientific name: Caricara cheriway

 Size and appearance: This 2-foot native with a 4-foot wingspan looks a bit like what it is — both carrion-eater and predator — and a bit like what it isn’t: a combination of hawk and vulture, perhaps. In fact, the crested caracara is actually in the falcon family, weighing in at about 2.5 pounds.

Seen from the bottom up, the long yellow legs rise into a white belly and underside of tail. That white is barred in black on the breast and the top of the bird, and the dark wings can have white bars on the tips, as well. The caracara’s neck and lower head appear whitish with some dark spotting, and the bill is a bluish grey, or even dark blue color. Both males and females look the same, and each has a distinctive, reddish orange skin between the eyes and bill.

 The creature at home: Only a few hundred of these remarkable and threatened native birds remain in central Florida, with a few in the southwestern counties, a decline resulting from loss of habitat to human development on the grasslands and prairies. Typically spotted with cabbage palms or oaks, those are the environments the caracara prefers. Not only real estate development but citrus groves, tree farms and nurseries, and other agricultural operations, along with highways where the caracara may be killed chasing small birds or animals, all have helped shoulder it aside.

As an eater, it’s not picky. If it isn’t feeding on carrion, it will attack turtles and turtle eggs, insects, fish, frogs, lizards, snakes, birds and a variety of small mammals such as cotton rats, mice or rabbits.

As adults, the birds bond permanently in pairs and aggressively defend their territories, staking out living sites and remaining in them for life, if possible.

Beginning next month or in December, caracaras will begin the most active mating and egg-laying season — but active or not, the caracara reproduces slowly, another factor that has contributed to its decline in the face of development.

Females usually produced two to three eggs, although they might only have one, or perhaps they’ll lay four. Just over a month later the eggs will hatch, and the young birds will remain in the nest, benefiting from the protection and feeding care of both adults, for about eight weeks. But they themselves must survive for at least three to four years before they reach sexual maturity and can contribute to the population.

Often called the Mexican eagle, the caracara is also found in Arizona and Texas. Its Spanish names include Carancho, Caraira, Quelele and Totache.

 To learn more: www.florida.sierraclub.org; www.allaboutbirds.org. FLORIDA BLACK BEAR:

 Scientific name: Ursus americanus floridanus

 Size and appearance: Often thought smaller than other bears in North America (a rule for which there are many exceptions), this magnifi cent and adaptable creature is a formidable and intelligent predator, weighing in at about 300 pounds on the average, with females smaller than males. But males have been known to reach 500 or 600 pounds. The bear stands about 3 feet high at the shoulder, at most, but it can grow as long as 6 or 7 feet in length from nose to stubby tail. It shows off an almost uniformly dark fur mottled only lightly at the muzzle or even on the chest, and only occasionally, with a lighter brown color. The short sharp claws are non-retractable, which is one reason these animals make superb tree climbers.

 The creature at home: Threatened in Florida, one of the only states (with Louisiana) where the black bear is not listed as a game animal, the largest population of these omnivores exists here in the southwest across Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties, with an estimated 500 to 700 animals.

A capable hunter of deer and other mammals, the black bear nevertheless takes about 80 percent of its diet from other sources, eating fruits such as hog plum, beauty berries or wild grapes; a variety of plants, nuts, seeds, and insects, honey and the bees that come with them; reptiles, amphibians and fish — as well as carrion.

The black bear anywhere in North America is mostly solitary and equipped with acute senses of smell (they can catch even a faint whiff of something from a mile away if a slight breeze exists) and hearing. They’re also loosely territorial if a scarcity of food exists, but they’ll tolerate other bears in times of abundance. Nevertheless, each mature bear has a home range that varies from about 50 to 120 square miles for males, and from 25 to 50 square miles for females. In such wild places as the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve, or the CREW Trust lands or the Babcock wilderness lands, bear markings appear about 5 to 7 feet high on trees, as slash marks or punctuated bites — usually the bears mark game trails, although the reason for this behavior is not known.

The bears’ alleged poor eyesight is probably not so, or at least only relatively so, since they can see at least as well as humans. Wildlife biologists have demonstrated that they also have color vision.

Black bears mate usually in the summer months. Females, who reproduce only every two years unless the cubs die, remain pregnant for about 10 weeks. When the cubs are born — typically two cubs, but as many as six — she becomes fiercely protective for as long as two years, in some cases. The mother will wean her cubs at six to eight months, then feed them while teaching them to hunt, climb and track prey.

While bears communicate to their kind with a variety of sounds — grunts, moans, bawling — they also expect you to understand the language. Especially if you encounter bears up close and they stare, thrust out their lower lips, flatten their ears, or huff, blow, woof, snap or gnash their jaws, it’s time to take action. And the proper action is not to lock and load, but to back slowly away, talking in a steady monotone and avoiding eye contact. Experts advise you not to run, and in the unlikely event you’re attacked, to fight back with anything you have — rocks, backpacks, water bottles or the like.

Climbing a tree, by the way, would be a mistake, usually. This animal can ascend a 90-foot pine tree in 30 seconds.

In Florida black bears do not hibernate, since both food and warmth are often available in winter. They live about 10 years on the average, in the wild, but some have been known to survive as long as 30 years.

 To learn more: www.myfwc.com; www.defenders.org. DIAMONDBACK TERRAPIN:

 Scientific name: Malaclemys terrapin

 Size and appearance: The beautiful but hand-sized diamondback terrapin not only has a diamond pattern on the top of its shell, but it resembles an elaborately tattooed street performer, since each has a unique design of curving lines and spots on both the body and head — and each terrapin can be different in color, ranging from a variety of grays and browns to yellows and whites. The head is shaped vaguely like a small pear on a long neck. Females are larger than males, and the record diamondback reached more than 9 inches.

 The creature at home: This turtle is thought to be the only one on the continent to survive and thrive in and around brackish water, which is why it does well in salt marshes from as far north as Cape Cod to as far west as the Texas Gulf coast to as far south as Florida. In Florida, subspecies include the ornate diamondback terrapin found all the way up the west coast; the mangrove diamondback terrapin along the extreme southern coasts; and the Florida east coast diamondback terrapin.

After mating in the late winter or early spring, the female produces a clutch of eggs ranging in number from five to 12. To do so, she needs sand or dry soft soil and safe ground in which to nest.

When diamondback terrapins choose to dine, however, they leave the land or at least a land diet, and seek out aquatic snails, crabs, small shellfish such as clams, scallops or mussels, as well as small fish, the sand worms found frequently here in tidal flats, and various water plants. Using the bony plates attached both to the upper and lower jaws, this terrapin can crush the shells of small bivalves with relative ease.

Males become sexually mature at about two to three years, but the females must survive longer, for six to seven years, before they’re ready to reproduce.

Getting to the reproductive stage can be a problem for this little turtle. Only about 20 percent of those born survive the first year, according to some estimates, and the predators are many: for females on the next, raccoons are a primary danger. And small turtles as well as eggs are favored by crabs, crows, seagulls, rats, foxes, skunks and mink, among other creatures. Not to mention humans, who sought the meat so energetically a century ago, that the numbers of diamondback terrapins dwindled significantly.

 To learn more: www.nsis.org; www.aqua.org. FLORIDA PANTHER:

 Scientific name: puma concolor coryi

 Size and Appearance: As lions go, they’re small, weighing in at about 130 pounds for average adult males, and 75 pounds for females. Reaching about 2½ feet high at the shoulder, the Florida panther is a tawny brown from stem to stern, on top, and a silvery gray or an ashy white along the belly. It has a black-tipped tail and ears, and amber eyes. Stretched from nose to tail, it probably measures 8 feet in length, or less in the case of females.

 The creature at home: Whereas this species once ranged across the southeastern United States through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, as well as parts of Tennessee and South Carolina, now there are only 100 or less, and almost all of them near — or south of — the Caloosahatchee River in Southwest Florida.

In the Fakahatchee Strand and points east, up through the CREW Trust lands and even on occasion north of the river in the Babcock Wilderness area, panthers are occasionally spotted. That may be because each animal requires a sizeable home range — some 200 square miles in the case of males, and about 75 square miles for females.

There, they’re lucky if they can find significant quantities of their traditional staple food, the white-tailed deer. But they’re opportunists, so they also eat feral hogs, which are now a staple for them in some places, as well as rabbits, raccoons, rats, armadillos, birds, small alligators, turtles and probably other creatures — snakes, for example.

They’ll also eat small livestock or domestic animals who roam outside at night, traditionally — but so far they have avoided whining or unruly children whenever possible.

Panthers usually break their solitary lifestyles to mate in winter and spring (although they can also mate in other seasons). The female begins her pregnancy or gestation by finding a den back in the palmetto scrub, through which most animals and humans do not travel. Florida panthers prefer pine flatwoods with their traditional palmetto understories, both as hunting and reproducing terrain.

The female carries her kittens for about 90 days before giving birth to a litter ranging from one to four, and averaging two.

Once born, kittens remain under their mother’s care and instruction for at least a year-and-a-half — if they survive. Rarely do all the kittens in a litter survive, and commonly none will.

During that time they learn not only to hunt, but to communicate. People who have heard them describe their sounds this way: chirps, peeps, whistles, purrs, moans, the famous scream, growls, hisses, and — in the case of females looking for a mate — caterwauling.

For those who reach adulthood and avoid destruction either by humans or highway accidents — or by other panthers, since they’ve been known to kill each other — they can live roughly 10 years in the wild.

 To learn more: www.floridapanther.org; www.defenders.org. EASTERN INDIGO SNAKE

 Scientific name: Drymarchon courais couperi

 Size and Appearance: This is the longest native snake in the United States, stretching to about 8.5 feet. The body suggests a muscle of glistening black rope sometimes brushed by a wash of cream or red color beneath the small oval head and throat. The snake is so dark it almost appears blue in some lights — hence the name, indigo.

 The creature at home: Ranging traditionally from as far north and west as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to as far south as Argentina, this big supple beauty — Florida’s state snake — is now most populous in central and southern Florida, including across the range of Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties.

But it remains endangered, a consequence of both hunting history and development history. Rattlesnake hunters seeking skins and eradication once gassed gopher tortoise holes regularly to kill the venomous snakes — which resulted not only in the deaths of gopher tortoises and rattlesnakes, but in the deaths of countless non-venomous indigo snakes as well, since they regularly inhabit gopher tortoise holes to avoid cool temperatures.

One of seven species of Indigo, the Eastern Indigo prefers wide-open grasslands and uplands, which happen to be ideal places for human constructions. But the snake is adaptable, too. You’ll find it in pine flatwoods, scrubby flatwoods, dry prairies, tropical hardwood hammocks, the edges of marshes awash in fresh water, along the coastal dunes and even in agricultural fields.

 Its shelter requirements are two: the ability to avoid cool temperatures, and the ability to avoid too much drought and dehydration. In wet environments where no gopher tortoises exist, this big hunter will find hollow stumps or logs, or the burrows of cotton rats and armadillos.

Breeding occurs about this time of year hereabouts, and females eventually lay between four and a dozen eggs, from which snakes will emerge in spring and early summer. But the females have a remarkable species survival trick: they can retain sperm for more than four years before fertilizing eggs, if necessary.

There are two other things to say here about the Eastern Indigo Snake. One, it can eat anything it can defeat, ranging from fish, frogs and toads to other snakes, including rattlesnakes, along with lizards, turtles, turtle eggs, young gopher tortoises, young alligators, birds and just about any small mammal. Like the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, which can grow almost as long as the Indigo, it favors marsh hares and cotton rats, in particular.

Also, it requires a great range, compared to most snakes. An adult male may need about 550 acres in the winter and 400 in the summer to survive. A preganat female requires about half that.

 To learn more: www.fws.gov/verobeach/images/pdfLibrary/eisn.pdf