Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Climbing fern destroys habitat at Loxahatchee wildlife refuge
It’s a plant from a horror movie.
Dense mats of old-world climbing fern have overrun sections of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, covering classic Everglades landscapes in grim green shrouds. Ascending tree trunks with fronds that can reach 100 feet, it destroys the tree islands that form crucial habitat for birds, reptiles and mammals.
Up to $2 million in federal money will go toward fighting the fern, known to botanists as Lygodium microphyllum, the South Florida Water Management Dis- Up to $2 million in federal money will go toward fighting the fern, known to botanists as Lygodium microphyllum.
trict announced Thursday.
“We must control the spread of invasive plants such as lygodium to protect the investment of billions of Florida taxpayer dollars to restore the Everglades,” said Jim Moran, a member of the water management district’s governing board.
Protecting the northern extent of the Everglades, the refuge encompasses 143,954 acres of swamp and forest in western Palm Beach County, established to provide habitat for migratory birds. Although managed by the federal government, the refuge sits on state land leased by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from the water management district.
The refuge is famous for its tree islands, thousands of patches of high ground scattered through the marshes, providing nesting areas for wading birds.
“Those tree islands are being devastated,” said Rolf Olson, the refuge’s manager. “It grows across the tree island and shades out and smothers everything, basically killing everything beneath it.”
“You can treat an area for lygodium and it can be growing back six months later,” Olson said. “It makes it really expensive and hard to control.”
The district had threatened to evict the federal government, claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was failing to do enough to fight the fern, which has spread by about 600 percent at the refuge over the past 20 years. Many environmentalists took the concern about the fern as a pretext for getting the federal government out so the district could loosen waterquality standards.
But the two sides reached an agreement late last year, with the federal government agreeing to spend $1.25 million to $2 million to fight the plant. The district has already spent $2 million in state funding on the effort. Also under the agreement, the federal government agreed to expand recreational opportunities at the refuge, including hunting.
The Burmese python, a constrictor that can consume fullly grown deer whole, has received the most attention as a non-native menace to the Everglades. But old-world climbing fern may be the more serious threat, with each plant releasing thousands of spores, generating mats that can destroy entire landscapes.
Native to Africa, southeast Asia and Australia, it was brought to South Florida in the 1950s as an ornamental plant and quickly spread to the wild. It has spread through much of the Everglades.