Saturday, October 2, 2010

US-836941

This week arrived cards from 2 US national parks, both unesco sites. I already had an Everglades card showing 3 ugly woodstorks. This one also has birds: upper left - american egret; lower left - anhinga and lower right - egret and also a woodstork.

US-836941, sent by Sarah.
"Everglades National Park is the largest designated sub-tropical wilderness reserve on the North American continent. Its juncture at the interface of temperate and sub-tropical America, fresh and brackish water, shallow bays and deeper coastal waters creates a complex of habitats supporting a high diversity of flora and fauna. It contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere, the largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie and the most significant breeding ground for wading birds in North America.
The Everglades contains vast subtropical wetlands and coastal/marine ecosystems including freshwater marshes, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rocklands, extensive mangrove forests, saltwater marshes, and seagrass ecosystems important to commercial and recreational fisheries. Complex biological processes range from basic algal associations through progressively higher species and ultimately to primary predators such as the alligator, crocodile, and Florida panther; the food chain is superbly evident and unbroken. The mixture of subtropical and temperate wildlife species is found nowhere else in the United States.
Everglades National Park is a noteworthy example of viable biological processes. The exceptional variety of its water habitats has made it a sanctuary for a large number of birds and reptiles and it provides refuge for over 20 rare, endangered, and threatened species. These include the Florida panther, snail kite, alligator, crocodile, and manatee. It provides important foraging and breeding habitat for more than 400 species of birds, includes the most significant breeding grounds for wading birds in North America and is a major corridor for migration." - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/76

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