 |
Archie Carr:
A Naturalist in Florida |
|
|
Wood Storks |
Wood Storks |
| NARRATION:
In the early 1970's Archie was hard at work on a book
about the florida Everglades for Time-Life's series on the American
wilderness. His research focused on three major areas: Everglades National
Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, and the Audubon Society's Corkscrew
Swamp Sanctuary. This preserve seems a good place to begin this part of the
story, for it is home to an endangered bird--the wood stork--that to Archie
epitomized primeval Florida |
| ARCHIE:
You can walk out into the heart of Corkscrew on a 5,800 foot boardwalk,
carefully laid out to take the observer through the different biological
communities in the tract. It finally ends in a broad central marsh
around which most of the numerous nesting groups that make up
Corkscrew's wood stork colony usually locate. |
|
| At nesting time wood storks
require a prodigious amount of food. A family of storks, including two
young ones, needs about 440 pounds of fish to sustain itself during the
four months of the breeding season. Obviously storks have to work hard
to meet these demands. If their nesting period is to be successful, wood
storks are compelled to make daily trips in search of some densely
populated, drought shrunken pool. |
|
|
| |