An Ancient History

Overlapping St. Lucie and Martin counties, the Savannas Preserve State Park contains 5,000 acres and stretches 10 miles from Fort Pierce to Jensen Beach. Thousands of years ago, when the sea level was some 30 feet higher than it is now, Hutchinson Island was an off-shore sandbar. The sand ridge that separates the Savannas from the Indian River was beach dune, and the Savannas was a lagoon similar to the Indian River today. Over time, sea level receded down that sandy staircase, turning the sandbar into a barrier island, the ancient dune to a sand ridge and the old lagoon into a marsh. Rainfall turned the water in the wetlands from brackish to fresh. West of the sand ridge and the wetlands were vast expanses of pine and palmetto forests. This was the face of the savannas for thousands of years. Today, only fragments remain. The Reserve contains the largest and most ecologically intact stretch of this Florida east coast ecosystem.

Extreme Cycles of Wet & Dry Maintain a Diverse Ecosystems

Like a sandy sink with a sluggish drain, the Savannas hold rainwater, allowing it to percolate slowly through a hard layer below the sand called hardpan. The marsh is sensitive to fluctuation in water level and as little as six inches could mean the difference between wet prairie and pine flatwoods. Some years, the marsh is a giant jigwaw puzzle of cracked mud. Other years, the flood waters run freely throught the pine forest on the western side.

A Refuge for Threatened Plants and Wildlife

Here in the Savannas, a special kind of safari beckons. Depending on the water level, explorers can sometimes navigate canoes through the channels of the marsh to view a variety of wading birds like woodstork and gallinule as well as the endangered snail kite which regularly feeds here. Unlike their migrating kin in other parts of the country, some sandhill cranes have made the savannas their year-round home, building their summer nests when sufficient water is available.

The Reserve's self-guided, hiking trail-head is located on the western side of the marsh just north of Walton Road and provides a relativly dry route through the pine/palmetto forest connecting with the Balsum Road trail-head some 4 miles north. Birds common to this habitat are the towee, red-bellied woodpecker, and various warbler species during migration. Uncommon species include the pileated woodpecker, (other species here.) Recently, a pair of southern bald eagles built their nest on the edge of the slash pine forest in the reserve but a storm blew the nest down, injuring their fledgling. Rangers rescued the youngster and transfered it to the Audubon Wildlife Hospital where it was nursed back to health and then successfully released back into the savannas.

The high, dry ground atop the Savannas dunes is very enticing to developers. But it is already inhabited. Flora and fauna on the upland ridge have adapted to the dry, desert-like conditions that are part of life in that habitat called scrub. Ninety percent of the scrub left in St. Lucie County occurs around the Savannas. Many of the animals that live in this type of environment, such as the Florida scrub jay, a threatened species, can survive nowhere else. The indigo snake, also considered threatened, shares the gopher tortoise holes with numerous other scrub inhabitants. The fragrant wooly cactus is a rare plant found almost nowhere else but in the savannas. Like some desert habitats, the scrub sand dune is one of the most fragile component of the Savannas ecosystem and and has suffered severly from years of abuse as a dumping ground and race-track for off-roaders. For this reason some areas of the dunes are closed even to foot traffic in hopes that mother nature in time will heal her wounds. The Savannas is not all marsh, pine forest and sandy ridge. There are two natural deep lakes, Eden Lake and Henderson Pond, where there have been boasful reports of bass weighing 12 to 15 pounds. Then there is the legend of the mammoth bass weighing as much as 20 pounds. Oldtimers say at least three people have founght with the wily one and lost.

Nature excursions hosted by the Preserve include interpretive one- and two-mile hiking trips and one- to two-hour canoeing trips (canoes and life jackets are provided.) A very active and coordinated group of Reserve volunteers do 90 percent of the interpretive work.

The Savannas that is Florida's cannot boast lions or wildebeests, but the great eagle still soars over an ecosystem, though not as expansive, that flourished for thousands of years. The same hydrologic cycle which fed the system then, feeds the Savannas today. The white-crowned ruler of this savanna glides towards a nest-on-high to waiting fledglings. And within the Florida Savannas (as on the Serengeti Plains) a rich, diverse circle of life continues.

For more information about the Savannas or if you are interested in becoming a Savannas Volunteer, go to Savannas Preserve State Park or call, write or visit the office at: 9551 Gumbo Limbo Lane, Jensen Beach, Florida 34957 Phone: 772-398-2779.