Help Red-cockaded Woodpecker Nests

at The Nature Conservancy's Disney Wilderness Preserve

To help protect nests during upcoming prescribed fires, we’ll be clearing vegetation around trees with red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW) cavities.

This is also a great way to see the Preserve!

The red-cockaded woodpecker is a federally endangered species and is protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.

A red-cockaded woodpecker about to be banded at Disney Wilderness Preserve.

Note the "red cockade".

The work involves uses brush cutters, sawsalls, rakes, and loppers to remove vegetation and palmetto branches within a ten foot radius of trees with RCW cavities.

Please wear long pants/long sleeves and a hat, and bring your work gloves and a hiker’s water bottle or similar.

We’ll have cold drinking water and all the tools needed.

Home to more than 1,000 species of plants and animals, The Disney Wilderness Preserve is an essential part of the Everglades ecosystem and contains 3,500 acres of restored wetlands that act as nature’s “sponges” in the landscape capturing rain, filtering out nutrients and replenishing our ground water.

The core of The Disney Wilderness Preserve is comprised of what was once an 8,500-acre cattle ranch situated at the head of the Greater Everglades watershed. In the early 1990s, the ranch was slated for extensive residential and commercial development which would have spelled the end for the property’s degraded—but restorable—wetlands, as well as the destruction of significant habitat for endangered plants and wildlife.

Working with The Nature Conservancy, the State of Florida, and a number of other groups, The Walt Disney Company purchased the property to mitigate its expansion and transferred it to the Conservancy to create a nature preserve dedicated to wetlands restoration on an unprecedented scale. The transfer also helped mitigate future impacts associated with the development of Walt Disney World. The Walt Disney Company provided funds for restoration and wildlife monitoring on the property and continues to partner on a number of on-site projects.

Learn more at https://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/florida/placesweprotect/the-disney-wilderness-preserve.xml