While reading a book today called Finding Florida by T. D. Allman, I just finished reading about Disney and Kerouac coming to Florida. Then, about Miami and some crazy laws that carried on years that never should have existed. I flipped to the front of the book, looking for the date written (2013) and I saw a heading for the first section, "Invasive Species". My brain automatically thought we are it, them the invasive ones. We are the ones who overconsume natural resources and take land away from cattle ranches to build housing and then complain about the price of beef. Or build our homes next to a river that has run for eons and are surprised or mad when the alligator that lives there wants to enjoy your pool. We are mad that trees we brought from somewhere else, like Brazilian pepper trees, have multiplied and prospered beyond our wildest dreams, and those turtles you bought your kids off the back of a white panel van on the side of the road. And when they got too big, you and the kids ceremoniously "return" them to where they originated. Not exactly, since there is no fish feeder sending pellets into the pond each evening and even God hopes they can survive, but someone else will come along and say they aren't native and don't belong. The theme persists throughout the state. Pythons in the Everglades are definitely a problem, but they are trying to survive after their home was destroyed and they were flung to the wilderness thanks to a hurricane.
I once belonged to an online group that I thought was for people native to Florida to share their views of Florida. I was wrong, they only wanted to see any person's views of things native to Florida so my orchids were removed, they aren't native to Florida. I made the executive decision that since I am, and they were probably not native to Florida, their group was not for me.
It is horrible that people's homes are lost to a storms, but to rebuild the same as it was again and hope it will really be 100 years til it happens again is unrealistic, with all of the concrete and asphalt it's no wonder the temperatures for the summer we expect to have over 90 days of over 90 degrees. We have well exceeded this summer. Yes, it will cool down, but it will take a good drenching and the way the planet fixes it is a good old tropical storm or two. How severe? That is the question.
Now if we move on to the national version of this same game. And just maybe playing out right now with a group of people forced to the Everglades. Imagine that storm I spoke of above displacing a bunch of humans that had been kept in a secure facility in South Florida, and that facility being damaged and all those people tossed into the Everglades just trying to survive. They have already been accused of being invasive. Just a thought.
And this summer I visited the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum in the Everglades. The museum represents the lives of the Seminole Indians and how they ended up in the Everglades. Let's see how did that go, oh yes, someone wanted land someone else had lived on for eons and wanted to force the people living there to move to let's just say Oklahoma. Not a place they were from or wanted to live. The land didn't have the same resources for these people to live, so instead of following the train of people being taken away, they headed south and ended up in the Everglades. A place where they were able to work the land and fish in the waters and make a life for themselves. Guess what the theme plays on. We went on an airboat ride and the driver, a native like me, shared his story of growing up in the Everglades, not as a Seminole but the man who owns the airboat ride company and he went to school together. He told about the 200 acres of wetlands they share with visitors. The federal government owns the land up against the airboat company and will no longer allow them to use the dock on that side of their property because the water it belongs to the federal government. This airboat ride was one of the highlights of the trip. Showing me the city girl the actual place where the owner of the airboat company grew up in open air buildings with thatch roofs and being picked on in school because he smelled like smoke because there was always a fire going to keep away the mosquitoes. I can't verify the story is all true but it was definitely a believable tale if it wasn't the truth.
One last thought and this is what got me typing today. The black bear, like the alligator living his best life in the small chunks of land we have given them to live but we are ever invading on. Back in the 1970s we the people had dwindled the population of the black bear down to about 400 bears in the state of Florida. Today the Fish and Wildlife people say we have successfully conserved and now there are over 4,000 black bears in Florida. They have not officially allowed the black bear to be hunted in 10 years but as motorist, we kill over 200 per year. This hunt as I have read will allow 187 permits for one bear each. I don't know the intention of the hunter. Is it just the trophy on the wall or is this like the venison they are going to eat it. I am not sure and really don't want to know. I just feel like we invade and take over and invade and take over then blame the animal or person that was already here for being in our way of taking over. I know most don't agree but guess what they probably aren't from here anyway.
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