Lake Russell at Disney Wilderness Preserve . © NISHEEKA BLACKSTOCK - THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
The drop of rain that fell into Shingle Creek will , almost a year later , pass through the gills of clownfish as it shelters in an anemone . In Disney terms , the water that rains where Bambi lives will one day make its way to Nemo ’ s home ( forgetting for a moment that Nemo lived in Australia , not the Florida Keys .) Along the way , of course , that water absorbs things as it flows over the earth .
COWS IN THE FOREST As more ranchers — and other people — discovered Florida , more of the Everglades disappeared , and fertilizer , cow manure , and other chemicals , like DDT and arsenic , started flowing south toward the nowdwindling Everglades .
The Everglades started to die .
As cattle ranching grew , other changes , too , wore down this part of the Everglades :
The seasonally swollen Kissimmee River — more a shallow , wide floodplain than a well-defined river — would not do ; ranchers dug trenches in an attempt to drain the water off pasture land . The grasses growing here , too , changed , as ranchers tore out native grasses and plants so they could plant nonnative plants for grazing . Even that , though , would have been preferable to tract houses and shopping malls , which is precisely the direction a piece of the Everglades called Walker Ranch seemed headed in the 1980s .
This land was once logged by the Coca- Cola Company but was then ranched by the Walker family ; the family ultimately listed the property for sale in the early 1990s . At the same time , state and federal agencies approved permits that would allow a developer to build 3,000 homes on another former ranch and allow a golfing subdivision , with six golf courses and 9,000