9/9/12: Draft Plans to Develop Crane Point Hammock
The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity has moved toward approval of $727,000 of federal Community Development Block Grant funds to finance a zip-line tourism attraction in one of the largest remaining stands of tropical hardwood hammock in the Florida Keys. In addition to this plant community’s status of critical conservation concern, the development site, Crane Point Hammock, serves as a primary feeding destination for the country’s largest remaining nesting concentration of White-crowned Pigeons. This bird was recently added to the state’s highest-priority list of protected species by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The accompanying draft management plan repeatedly focuses on the need to protect remaining hardwood hammocks from development.
The U.S. range of the White-crowned Pigeon is limited
entirely to southern Florida's tropical hardwood hammocks, where they find the
fruit on which they depend, and nearby mangrove islands, where they nest in the
absence of predators. The nonprofit Florida Keys Land and Sea Trust owns and
manages Crane Point Hammock. Ironically, part of their stated mission is
"to preserve, conserve, and restore valuable rare and endangered natural
areas in the Florida Keys, especially woodlands known as hardwood
hammocks."
In response to the Trust’s zip-line plan, ARCI has been
providing information on White-crowned Pigeon/hardwood hammock ecology to
government decision makers and an opposing group of citizen conservationists.
You can learn more about the plans for Crane Point Hammock and the public
resources that are threatened at the following sites.
Keep Crane Point Natural: www.keepcranepointnatural.com
Florida Fish and Wildlife: www.myfwc.com/about/inside-fwc/hsc
U.S. Fish and Widlife Service: www.fws.gov/nationalkeydeer
