May is American Wetlands Month

Emerson Point

Identify your watershed and find the wetlands in your neighborhood. Learn more about them and share what you learn with someone you know! Encourage neighbors, developers, and state and local governments to protect the functions and values of wetlands in your watershed.

Although wetlands are best known for being home to water lilies, turtles, frogs, snakes, alligators, and crocodiles, they also provide important habitat for waterfowl, fish, and mammals. Migrating birds use wetlands to rest and feed during their cross-continental journeys and as nesting sites when they are at home. As a result, wetland loss has a serious impact on these species. Habitat degradation since the 1970s has been a leading cause of species extinction.

Wetland functions include water quality improvement, floodwater storage, fish and wildlife habitat, aesthetics, and biological productivity. The value of a wetland is an estimate of the importance or worth of one or more of its functions to society. For example, a value can be determined by the revenue generated from the sale of fish that depend on the wetland, by the tourist dollars associated with the wetland, or by public support for protecting fish and wildlife.

Visit http://wetlandextension.ifas.ufl.edu/ or  http://water.epa.gov/type/wetlands/outreach/facts_contents.cfm for more info.

Explore some of Manatee County wetlands at 
http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/recreation/areas/edwardchance-gilley.html
http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/recreation/areas/terraceia.html
http://www.mymanatee.org/home/government/departments/natural-resources/resource-management/preserves.html.        

Attract Wildlife

Florida has the third most diverse wildlife population of any state. But rapidly growing urban development, particularly in coastal communities, is destroying native wildlife habitat. As our communities expand, we lament the loss of birds and other wildlife, but often our own yards are partly to blame.

Your Florida-Friendly Yard can provide habitat for wildlife in two major ways:

1. By increasing biodiversity, in part by using a variety of plants in your yard’s design.



2. By creating landscaped islands and natural corridors of plants that connect bordering properties. Animals use these corridors to travel from one natural area to another, which in turn fosters and benefits wildlife on a larger neighborhood scale.

As you create a new landscape or improve your existing one, add a few features for wildlife, and you will bring your yard to life with birds, butterflies and beneficial insects. Just remember that food, water and cover attract wildlife, but providing habitat is not enough. You also need to maintain your yard so the impact it has on the environment is minimal.

Consult the Manatee County UF/IFAS Extension office with questions at 941-722-4524 or email michelleatkinson@ufl.edu.