Old Florida. Rests in Pieces

An ode to the Florida that's disappearing: the scrub, the flatwoods, the cypress heads, and the cattle country our forefathers knew. This isn't the Florida of the postcards. It's the Florida of saw palmetto and sand pine, of cracker cowmen driving scrub cattle through the hammocks, of blackwater creeks and the gobble of an Osceola turkey at first light. That Wild Florida is still out there, but every year we risk losing more of it. What's happening to Florida's wild places: 🐾 The Florida panther: FWC estimates that only 120–230 adults remain, with the core population south of Lake Okeechobee. Vehicle collisions are the leading cause of documented panther deaths, while roads and development fragment the land they need to roam. 🌲 The longleaf pine forest: these forests once covered roughly 90 million acres across the Southeast. Today, longleaf forests cover about 6% of that historic acreage, including restored forests. That loss has reduced and fragmented the open, fire-maintained habitat that turkeys, gopher tortoises, and red-cockaded woodpeckers depend on. 💧 Wetlands: historical estimates indicate Florida has lost nearly half of its original wetlands to drainage, agriculture, and development. Many cypress domes and marshes that filtered water, held back floods, and sheltered wildlife have been drained, filled, or cut off from their natural water flow. 🏗️ Growth: Florida's population grows by hundreds of thousands each year. Ranchland, groves, and woods face continued pressure from development as rooftops and pavement spread across the landscape. 🍊 The groves: citrus greening disease, repeated hurricanes, and development pressure have taken a heavy toll on the orange country that helped define Central Florida for a century. 🐍 Invasives and water: Burmese pythons have devastated native mammal populations in parts of the Everglades, while excess nutrients from runoff, wastewater, and other sources fuel algal growth in our waters and can worsen some coastal blooms. But it isn't over. Ranchers, hunters, anglers, and conservationists are working together to protect the Florida Wildlife Corridor—a network of habitats and working lands stretching from the Everglades to Florida's northern borders. Some of that land is already protected. Other vital connections still need protection. Every conservation easement on a working ranch, every acre of protected habitat, keeps a piece of Old Florida alive. If this song meant something to you, support your local land trust, the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation, and the folks keeping working lands wild. 🎵 Song: Old Florida, Rests in Pieces 🎧 Music created with Suno · Video and lyrics by @OldFloridaRadio Lyrics: This isn't the Florida of the postcards or the neon signs. This is the scrub country. The ancient sand pines and the saw palmetto. Where the cracker horses once kicked up dust, herding wild cattle through the cypress heads. Our forefather fished the blackwater rivers, pulling bluegill and channel cat from the deep bend. They’d ease gators from their caves by hand, armed with nair but a hatchet. They hunted the pine flatwoods when the longleaf forest went on forever, listening for the gobble of an Osceola wild turkey in the first grey light. But the asphalt is creeping over the ridge, and the orange groves are turning into rows of red brick. The panther's trail is cut by a four-lane highway. Our wild places are running out of space, and time. Old Florida; Rests in Pieces. We used to follow the baying of the hounds through the palmetto flats, tracking white-tailed deer under a canopy of live oak. Now the cypress domes are drained, and the swallow-tailed kites have nowhere left to nest. The cowboy's whip don't crack like it used to. The silence of the marsh is being paved over, acre by acre. Just a ghost of a place forgotten by time. The voice of our forefathers whisper through the Spanish moss. Old Florida... Rests in Pieces. - What's a wild place in Florida you remember that's gone now? Or one that you still hold dear? Tell us in the comments. #OldFlorida #FloridaWildlife #FloridaWildlifeCorridor