Ken is turned upside down , his head and his iPhone under the wooden picnic table , trying to take a photo .
“ What is it ?” he asks me . I dip my head down to meet his . A tiny spider , yellow and red with black polka dots on its back , stares back at us .
“ It ’ s a crab spider ,” I tell him . But crab spiders , arguably the most adorable arachnid on the planet , aren ’ t why I ’ ve brought him — and others in my travel group — to The Nature Conservancy ’ s Disney Wilderness Preserve . Once they get past the visitor center , they ’ ll have a chance to see rare woodpeckers , wood storks , and even — if we ’ re lucky — a Florida panther . But we ’ re less than 50 feet from our cars , and already , the group ’ s delighted
BY CATHY SALUSTRI at the expanse of wilderness before them .
Not even 45 minutes from Disney ’ s Kilimanjaro Safaris , you can take a safari of your own into the part of the Everglades that The Walt Disney Company helped to bring back from the brink of extinction . As with anything The Walt Disney Company does , the way the company did it — rebuilding it from the ground up — makes it a must-see part of paradise .
BEFORE WALT DISNEY WORLD Long before Walt Disney decided to build the Happiest Place on Earth on the edge of the northern Everglades , cattle ranchers descended on the land , eager to find a cheap source of water for their cows . Cows need water — and lots of it . Love hamburgers ? A half-pound burger takes almost 1,000 gallons of water to get to
ABOVE : Hikers on the trail at Disney Wilderness Preserve . © RALPH PACE - THE NATURE CONSERVANCY