|
|
| Quotes reference |
Bishop Wright, Jr., president of the Florida Airboat Association and charter member of the Florida Sportsmen’s Conservation Association
Eric Kimmel
Ronnie Bergeron, commissioner on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Franklin Adams
Frank Denninger
Jack Switzer
William "Nubbin" Lanier
Ronnie Bergeron, commissioner on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Danny Brantley, president of the Kissimmee River Valley Sportsmen Association
Tom Shirley
Back to top |
What Gladesmen have to say
|
Bishop Wright, Jr., president of the Florida Airboat Association and charter member of the Florida Sportsmen’s Conservation Association:
(On an airboat trip in the Everglades:) My definition of a Gladesman is someone
that would rather go to the woods than go to Walt Disney World. A true Gladesman
is someone that has spent more time in the woods than, probably, spare time. A true
Gladesman is someone that has to go to the woods, say once a month to get a fix. I
mean, you just can't live without it. That's my definition of a true Gladesman, and
I can name a couple hundred of them.
The Gladesmen are the eyes and ears of the Everglades. There's no one, no one in this
whole world who could care more about a piece of property than a Gladesman. No one. I
don't care who you are. It's the heart and soul. And so the little bit of impact that
we make is a drop in the bucket to what we preserve and protect.
Back to top
Eric Kimmel:
It's important that we (the Gladesmen culture) get written into any
plans in the restoration, that we are included in it.
Back to top
Ronnie Bergeron, commissioner on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission:
I would say a Gladesman is a person that loves to be in the swamps as a part of
the environment and enjoys nature, enjoys the beauty of it. It's sort of like a
getaway back in time. It's a part of Florida that is real Florida.
I think it's being in the environment, having access to it, and learning it and
understanding it.
I think the most important thing is that we preserve and we protect the natural
resources of all of Florida, and we preserve and we protect the traditional culture
of the Gladesmen.
Back to top
Franklin Adams:
This is my place in the swamp and that's where I'm happy and what I know and I'm a master naturalist, and I'm still learning at my age.
Back to top
Frank Denninger:
Some people would call what I do extreme; I just call it natural. Some people would
like to see the Everglades on a boardwalk. But, I want to see it in a whole lot
different way. I want to see it from the animal's viewpoint and become a part of it
when I'm out there as if I've been there for ten thousand years.
Back to top
Jack Switzer:
(On the Everglades 70 years ago:) We'd go out there fishing. It's like going
out in the prehistoric days, you know, everything was like prehistoric, hadn't
changed in billions of years. And it was kind of scary, for a kid anyway. And
when we got older, we started hunting. We'd go out there and hunt in the cypress.
We'd walk for days and never see a deer, then walk days and you'd never get close
enough to shoot at one of them. Then you'd walk days before you ever thought you'd
hit one. So it was about eight years before I got my first deer after I started
hunting. We'd walk with no camping gear. We'd just crawl up under some palmettos
and keep the dew off of us for the night, hope the red bugs didn't get us. And
start walking the next day. Years ago they didn't enforce game laws because there
were plenty of wildlife – deer, ducks, all kinds of birds and such – frogs and
whatever. Now that it's so populated, they had to set game laws so you don't take
more than the land would produce.
Back to top
William "Nubbin" Lanier:
(On a visit to Fisheating Creek:) Being on this creek was not what we do
for recreation. It's a way of life. It was just a great place to go, nobody
bothered you. No problems. You get away from everything.
Back to top
Ronnie Bergeron, commissioner on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission:
(On a trip to a tree island in the 1940s:) I got to see the native Indians
on these islands with dugout canoes. I remember one particular island where
there were about 40 dugout canoes around the island that we pulled up on. And
they had tikis built. And that was one of their hunting islands, where the
Indians would leave the reservations and they would go to certain islands and
hunt and then go back to the reservation. I was the last generation to see the
Everglades and the Indians living the way they lived for hundreds of years exactly
the way it was before the turn of the century.
Back to top
Danny Brantley, president of the Kissimmee River Valley Sportsmen Association:
We still have families that grew up practicing traditional Gladesmen
activities. But in 20 more years I don't think we will have. Every
century the children are becoming less and less likely to be there.
If they keep encroaching on us, and if we don't keep fighting for our
hunting rights out here and our access rights on these lakes and in the
Glades and everywhere else, where are we going to hunt? The true native
Floridian will have no place to go.
Back to top
Tom Shirley:
There isn't anybody going to be left to fight for the Everglades if
the people can't get out there and feel it and see it and enjoy it.
Back to top
|
| To add your name to the Everglades Report electronic mailing list, please
click here. To unsubscribe to Everglades Report,
please click
here. If you would like to speak to a person about subscribing or unsubscribing, please call 305-948-8063. |
|
|
Everglades Report is an unofficial publication authorized under the provisions of AR 360-1 and published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, P.O. Box 4970, Jacksonville, Fla. 32232-0019. It is produced under
the direction of Nanciann Regalado, program manager of strategic
communication and outreach, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville
District. Comments regarding this report are encouraged and may be sent to
nanciann.e.regalado@usace.army.mil or submitted by calling 904-232-3904.
|
