ury. Populations of all other vertebrates, from deer to turtles, are down 75 percent to 90 percent (7). By the 1980s, scientists and environmentalists feared that the erosion caused by humans, particularly the pollution caused by runoff from the sugarcane farms, would spell the end of the Everglades, and the battle to save the Everglades began (6).
The main source of water for the Everglades is the Shark Slough, which was severed several decades ago by the construction of the Tamiami Trail, and further water reductions have occurred as water has been directed away from farms and housing developments which border the park (18). In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dug 56 miles of straight canals to replace 109 miles of meandering waterways of the Kissimmee River for efficiency of river transport and to control flooding, but in the process, destroyed 1.2 million square meters of wetlands (7:1688).
The canals draw off 40 percent of the fresh water that used to flow through the Everglades and direct it straight to the ocean. Before the canals were built, the one- to two-feet deep water slid through 109 miles of native saw grass (from which the Everglades was given the nickname "river of grass" by naturalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, one of the first people to show concern for the need to preserve the Everglades) from Lake Okeechobee southward to Florida Bay. It took more than a year for the water to reach the bay, and along the way it provided a habitat for alligators, fish and other wildlife. At the bay, it mixed with salt water over acres of sea grass, providing a productive nursery for fish and shrimp.
The canal system has resulted in a 95 percent drop in the population of wading birds, and more than 50 species of Everglades plants and animals are threatened or endangered, including the Florida panther, the wood stork and the snail kite, the American crocodile, the southern bald eagle and the lo...