Going to the dogs?
State officials considering allowing leashed pooches at Split Oak Forest
Amid controversy over a plan to build a highway in Split Oak Forest, a related issue has popped up: should people’s best friend be allowed to roam the conservation property?
“I have to hike there illegally because it is not a dog-friendly place and I’m not sure why that is,” said a Split Oak adventurer who wants that to change and has clout to do it.
That visitor is Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. He often attends government affairs and visits green spaces, including Split Oak, with Sammie, his mellow 12-year-old female labradoodle that readily makes friends.
Dyer was speaking recently as a board member of the Central Florida Expressway Authority, the region’s toll road agency, while it considered a resolution for Split Oak Forest.
The resolution, addressing the authority’s contested effort to extend a toll road across 1.3 miles of the forest, would bring extra environmental protections, including for an adjoining 1,550-acre tract offered by developers to offset the road’s harm.
Approved by the authority, the resolution supports “some allowances for dog friendly trails.”
What that means exactly is to be determined. Environmental officials are divided on dogs. At many conservation properties across Florida, including Split Oak, the only bark is coarse but quiet.
“Split Oak is a wildlife preserve, not the Lake Baldwin Dog Park,” said a dog fan who has had them all of her life, Marjorie Holt.
A local Sierra Club leader, Holt thinks that pets are incompatible with Split Oak’s intended purpose to protect wildlife primarily and secondarily to host visitors. The forest prohibits dogs, bicycles and motor vehicles, and has no restrooms and minimal parking.
“While I greatly love dogs, I believe the wilderness areas of Split Oak are no place for them,” said Holt, also an opponent of the highway. “Dogs can be noisy and harass and kill wild animals. Bring binoculars instead of a dog.”
As it turns out, however, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the caretaker of the property, apparently and quietly has begun to consider permitting leashed dogs within Split Oak Forest.
Commission spokesperson Carli Segelson said the forest was established to safeguard gopher tortoises and their habitat.
“At the time, dogs were thought to have a potential negative impact on tortoises,” Segelson said in an email. “In an effort to provide increased opportunities to the public, a rule proposal has been submitted to allow the public to bring restrained dogs … as negative impacts due to leashed dogs have not been observed on other public lands that allow them.”
But when asked for a copy of the submitted proposal, Segelson said she followed up with staff and learned that “because it is so early in the process, there is no proposal yet.”
As the southeast quadrant of Central Florida rapidly replaces green space with rooftops and pavement, pressure for outdoors outings with the companionship of dogs is bound to rise.
Where matters stand at Split Oak, which has taken on a high profile in the region because of the proposed highway, remain a mystery.
Segelson and the commission’s communications director, Carol Lyn Parrish, did not respond to follow-up questions on a timeline and opportunity for public comment on considering dogs at Split Oak Forest.
Many conservation areas in Florida welcome the likes of Sammie as long as they are on a leash, including Florida parks, lands owned by the St. Johns River Water Management District and dozens belonging to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
But many environmental agencies do not welcome dogs in some or most of their properties, including the state’s biggest, Everglades National Park.
The Everglades permits pets in boats, cars, campgrounds and picnic areas.
They are prohibited on trails, including boardwalks, on unpaved roads and on the popular Shark Valley Tram Trail — or pretty much where anyone would want to hike.
“Pets present in areas not permitted open themselves to predation by wildlife,” the park warns.
While the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission owns and manages thousands of acres of wetlands and forest, most of that is dedicated to hunting.
But the agency has nearly two-dozen properties called Wildlife and Environmental Areas, including Split Oak Forest Wildlife and Environmental Area, which emphasize sheltering rather than shooting wildlife.
Many of the Wildlife and Environmental Areas prohibit dogs.
The Nature Conservancy’s four refuges in Florida, the Disney Wilderness Preserve, Tiger Creek Preserve, Blowing Rocks Preserve and Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve, ban pets.
Steve Coates, the group’s director for Florida stewardship and field programs, said dogs and other pets can directly or indirectly harm or disrupt native plants, wildlife, and natural areas, and detract from the experiences of visitors seeking to enjoy nature on its own terms.
State parks prohibit pets from beaches and swimming areas, except for a pet beach at Honeymoon Island State Park. “Even the most well-behaved pets may be perceived as threats to beach wildlife, which, in turn may prevent them from nesting,” the park service states.
Julie Wraithmell, executive director of Audubon Florida, said her group historically has emphasized protecting beach birds, which often fear four-legged animals even from afar and are prone to abandoning nests when dogs approach.
But Audubon doesn’t have a stance for inland conservation lands.
“We are not anti-dog,” Wraithmell said. “Really, it’s up to the land manager, so we would defer to the land managers.”
Split Oak Forest has evolved significantly since its creation in the early 1990s. At that time, it was a far-flung refuge, seemingly untouchable by sprawl, much less a high-speed toll road.
Today, sprawling suburbia is wrapping around the forest’s south end, leaving homes, where presumably cats and dogs live, at the forest’s fence line and easily visible from trails.
The forest reverberates with the howl of passenger jets at full power, rising every several minutes from Orlando International Airport 5 miles away to the west.
“Split Oak is really getting impacted by the world,” Holt said. “It deserves some respect from the world.”