Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition: Glades to Gulf

From left to right: filmmaker Eric Bendick, Florida Wildlife Corridor Executive Director Mallory Lykes Dimmitt, filmmaker Collin Ruggiero, and wildlife biologist Joe Guthrie. All eyes turn up to search the longleaf pine trees for red-cockaded woodpeckers on day 64 of the #Glades2Gulf Expedition in Blackwater River State Forest. These birds excavate cavities exclusively in live, 70-80 year old longleaf pine trees, making them a unique species to this ecosystem.

Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition: Everglades Headwaters to Gulf Islands #Glades2Gulf

Expedition Day 64 – Trail mixer, Blackwater River State Park, paddle 3 miles

RCW dawn and dusk cavity watch

Blackwater River State Forest

This mission of the Florida Wildlife Corridor is to protect a functional ecological corridor throughout Florida for the health of people, wildlife and watersheds. Learn more at FloridaWildlifeCorridor.org.

Photo by Carlton Ward Jr / CarltonWard.com

As Florida’s human population has expanded, conservation lands have become increasingly isolated from one another, causing problems for numerous species of wildlife. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition shows that a statewide wildlife corridor is still possible and important for the future of people and wildlife.

The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition team includes executive director Mallory Lykes Dimmitt, conservation photographer and project founder Carlton Ward Jr. and biologist Joe Guthrie whose Central Florida black bear research was the inspiration for the campaign. Beginning January 10, 2015, the team embarked on 925-mile trek to highlight a wildlife corridor from Central Florida to the Gulf Coast, through the Big Bend, and across the Panhandle all the way to Alabama.

The original Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition was a 1000-mile trek through peninsular Florida, from the Everglades on South Florida to the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia.