Gator bites Florida college student hiking in Everglades

[AP] An alligator bit an 18-year-old college student who was hiking with a group at the Everglades National Park, officials said. The Miami Herald reported that a professor and about 15 students were wading through the water on a wet trail near the Pahayokee Overlook southwest of Miami when the reptile bit the young woman’s lower right leg. Everglades National...

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A Guide to the National Parks of Florida

Bill Reynolds has been with the national parks service for a decade, and has visited a ton of them—particularly in Florida. It’s fair to say the spokesman is a super-fan. Of the famed Everglades, he crows, “If the National Parks are America’s crown jewels, the Everglades are some of the shiniest!” But it’s not the only gem in the Sunshine State. Florida’s...

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20 tons of trash cleaned from Apalachicola National Forest in just one weekend

Volunteers removed more than 20 tons of garbage from the Apalachicola National Forest recently. But forest officials say the problem of illegal dumping, of sometimes hazardous materials, continues to grow. Along Highway 319 in Leon and Wakulla counties, near Tallahassee, Florida, volunteers, National Forest staff and others fanned out into the sometimes thick underbrush....

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Explore SW Florida history at Buckingham Trails Preserve

Lee County, Florida Parks & Recreation invites visitors and residents to explore the new hiking and equestrian trails at Conservation 20/20’s Buckingham Trails Preserve located in east Fort Myers. The preserve provides a newly built parking area and trail system totaling more than 7 miles. There are 2.3 miles of hiking trails and 4.8 miles for both horseback riding...

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Work to Start On Hiking Path Near Fort Meade, FL

Later this month, crews will begin carving a 2.6-mile tree-shaded hiking path out of the wilderness along the Peace River near Fort Meade. And when the Peace River Trail is finished about four months from now, city leaders in Fort Meade are hoping it will become a magnet for visitors to their community. “I think people are going to come here and walk the trail, and...

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Divers Remove 90,000 Tires from Ocean Floor in Florida

Divers in helmets have begun walking the ocean floor off Fort Lauderdale to clear an environmental catastrophe that’s rested among the coral reefs for more than 40 years. An estimated 700,000 tires were dropped into the ocean off Hugh Taylor Birch State Park in the early 1970s in a failed attempt to create an artificial reef. At the time, before anyone had figured out...

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Florida Isn’t The Only State Where Officials Censored The Term ‘Climate Change’

It may have seemed surprising when four former employees of Florida’s state Department of Environmental Protection said they were forbidden to use the words “climate change” and “global warming” in any official communications. But as it turns out, the alleged practice is not unusual — at least in states with governors who do not accept the scientific validity of...

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