Kick Ass: Selected Columns

by Carl Hiaasen

  A concerned motorist reported the animal to the Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale. The center immediately sent its ambulance and volunteers.

  When they arrived at the area, just north of the Dade line, they found no sign of the cat. But after a brief search they spotted it hiding in brushy cover, not far from a cleared construction site.

  The animal was weak, and put up no struggle. It died in the ambulance racing back to the Wildlife Care Center.

  Rescuers had a sad mystery on their hands: an adult male bobcat about 2 years old, which should have been in its physical prime. No signs of trauma—the cat hadn't been shot or struck by a car, or mauled by another animal.

  A necropsy was performed by the center's veterinarian, Dr. Deb Anderson. She found no fractures, no internal injuries, no disease in the organs.

  What she did find was a shockingly emaciated animal with white gums and not an ounce of body fat. The young bobcat was all skin and bones. It had starved to death.

  Starved, on the edge of the Everglades. How?

  They're paving the edge of the Everglades, in case you hadn't noticed. The corridor from Southwest Broward through Northwest Dade has become bulldozer heaven.

  It's the final horizon before the dikes, the last open mecca in which to slap up crowded subdivisions with fanciful names such as Big Sky North and Bluegrass Lakes. Naturally, politicians are rubber-stamping these monstrosities as fast as possible.

  For humans, overdevelopment means your kids are shoehorned into classrooms and you're stuck behind dump trucks every morning on I-75. For wildlife, the inconveniences are more perilous.

  Unlike scrappy opossums and raccoons, bobcats don't adapt to human encroachment—they flee from it. In fact they're so reclusive that a person could spend a lifetime in Florida and never lay eyes on one.

  The cats aren't listed as endangered, but they've been pushed so far away that they're rarely encountered. Of 12,000 animals brought to the wildlife center this year, only four were bobcats.

  And only one arrived dead of starvation a few days before Thanksgiving, another small casualty of "progress."

  Like the much larger panther, bobcats are fiercely territorial. If a young male wanders into an older cat's range, the younger animal is attacked and sometimes killed.

  Imagine what happens when one of them suddenly loses its home to machines; when the woods where it hunts small mammals and dens its kittens are flattened to moonscape.

  The cat can't run east because east got paved. Can't go west because it's mostly water. Can't go north or south without battling other bobcats for a sparse, shrinking habitat.

  Dr. Anderson believes the male found along U.S. 27 chose to hang tough, refusing to abandon his home range. He spent his final days running on magnificent guts and desperation, hunting himself to exhaustion in a barren future suburb of Miramar or Pembroke Pines.

  Soon, on the same ground that cat and its ancestors once roamed, there will be a new condo clubhouse or outlet shops, or perhaps a multiplex cinema.

  And the parking lots will fill with avid newcomers who won't know about the small wild tracks that got buried under all that greed.

  '97 is already a mean season for wildlife

  May 25, 1997

  A few days ago, a man in Key Largo took half a raw chicken and stuck it on a big triple-barbed hook. The hook was attached to a heavy nylon rope, which was reinforced with a steel cable leader.

  The man lobbed the hooked chicken into a canal and began to wait. This is exactly how a poacher would do it—"a classic set-hook for crocodilians," said reptile expert Todd Hardwick, who later was called to the scene.

  Before long, something swam along and ate the man's bait. It was a male North American crocodile measuring 9 feet, 10 inches and weighing about 350 pounds.

  The animal was one of a pair that lived in the waterway, not far from the John Pennekamp state park. This species has been fighting back from the edge of extinction, and South Florida is the only place in the world where it lives.

  More timid than alligators, these crocs are not known to attack humans. The big one that swallowed the baited chicken had long ago been tagged by a biologist named Paul Moler, who works for the state. Moler has spent years trying to save Florida's crocodiles.

  This one was No. 050358. Moler had marked it after it emerged from the nest on Aug. 9, 1982, at the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Key Largo.

  Its life ended only a few miles away, under a dock, where it thrashed to death on the end of a rope. Its insides were torn to shreds.

  Somebody in the neighborhood spotted the carcass and called authorities, because killing crocodiles is highly illegal. Nobody has been arrested yet.

  A man interviewed by wildlife officers said he was innocently fishing when the croc grabbed his bait. Wow! Fishing with a chicken on a steel cable—they must grow some damn big snappers in that canal.

  It continues to be a brutal season for Florida wildlife, with jerks running amok. In March, a 10-ton Minke whale died near Big Pine Key after being shot five times by unknown persons.

  Who knows why anyone would take target practice on such a harmless and elegant creature, but you can bet on a pathetic combination of boredom and stupidity. Bullets from two separate guns were removed from the dead whale.

  Then, from the purely vicious to the purely greedy:

  Five young sports from Hialeah were arrested two weeks ago in Biscayne National Park. They carried no fishing licenses, but had a boatload of illegal booty, including undersize and out-of-season lobster, 458 queen conchs and the remains of a rare loggerhead turtle.

  The goons who butchered the turtle could get 12 to 18 months in a federal prison. A park ranger found the animal's flippers while searching the boat.

  Days later, several men were busted for illegal spearfishing around Dinner Key and Government Cut.You know you've found paradise when you can poach lobsters within wading distance of the Miami skyline.

  Some judges go easy on wildlife violators, and others are as tough as the law allows. Unfortunately, the maximum fines are too low and the maximum jail sentences are too light for the crime, which is nothing short of robbery.

  A few neighbors on that canal in Key Largo said they were glad the croc was gone. They said they feel safer now.

  That's almost understandable—it was a large, scary-looking critter. The fact it hadn't hurt anyone didn't matter. Fear is fear.

  Still, some folks would like their kids one day to see a loggerhead turtle in the Atlantic, or even a wild crocodile in Florida Bay.

  That No. 050358 held on for almost 15 years is a small miracle of nature, considering all the numbskulls and bandits it had to elude.

  Turtle's slaying shows we need more Cousteaus

  June 29, 1997

  Eighty-seven years is a long time, but not long enough for Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Unfortunately, he died before his work was done.

  Although his ardent writings and dazzling photography awakened millions to the world underwater, he couldn't reach everybody.

  Last weekend in Marathon, a little girl named Michelle was fishing from a motel dock when she accidentally snagged a sea turtle. The child called to family members, who hurried over to investigate the commotion.

  You needn't be a student of Cousteau documentaries to know that sea turtles in Florida and around the world are in danger of being wiped out. The humane response would have been to unhook the animal and let it swim away.

  That's what one of the girl's relatives originally claimed they'd done. But that isn't what actually happened.

  According to the Florida Marine Patrol, one of the family members grabbed a spear gun and shot the turtle as it struggled on the end of the fishing line.

  Then, witnesses say, the family carried it to their boat and sped off. Other tourists, infuriated, notified authorities.

  When the Coast Guard intercepted the boat in Florida Bay, officers found the deck smeared with blood, but no turtle. On shore, more
blood was found in a garbage can. Samples were collected for evidence.

  Killing turtles is a serious crime. The Marine Patrol has charged Rene Robinson, Carlos Robinson and Ricardo Robinson, of Miami. The federal government also might prosecute.

  Officers say Rene Robinson admitted spearing the turtle and stashing it in the garbage. When another relative informed him that keeping turtles was illegal, the family allegedly decided to dump the carcass offshore.

  It was quite a gruesome little tableau to unfold on a Sunday evening in a resort area, the singular attraction of which is, ironically, its unique tropical sea life.

  People travel to South Florida from all over the planet to see in person what they've seen only in books or on television—the soaring dolphins, the cruising sharks, the whole teeming kaleidoscope of the coral reefs.

  They certainly don't come to see a helpless creature gored by some troglodyte with a spear gun.

  Killing will happen as long as there's life underwater. Sea turtles and other endangered species are regularly taken, but often it's done because people are poor and hungry—not because they're bored on their vacation.

  What took place in the Keys wouldn't have surprised Jacques Cousteau, though it would have saddened him. He spent a lifetime crusading against the foolhardy and wanton pillage of lakes, rivers and seas.

  He tried to teach the difference between wise harvest and reckless butchery, and tried to show why all living things beneath the water's surface, from the regal blue whale to the unglamorous toadfish, have value far beyond the dollar.

  It wasn't easy to open this remote new world, or to make outsiders share his awe. In the 19405 Cousteau helped invent the first aqualung, enabling humans to breathe underwater. Thus scuba was born, and soon the oceans had a political constituency.

  Judging by the millions who dive and snorkel for the beauty, and by the millions more who flock to the Seaquarium and other marine exhibits, Cousteau's legacy is phenomenal.

  Largely because of his pioneering, most who are lucky enough to see a wild sea turtle don't feel an impulse to spear it. Rather, they feel what they ought to feel, what their children feel: curiosity and wonderment.

  Others feel nothing, yet Cousteau never gave up trying to enlighten them. He could have used another 87 years.

  Same old song: Greed drowns another species

  December 28, 1997

  It's a tiny wisp of a bird, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. You probably won't even notice after it's gone.

  When the floodgates crank open at a dike west of Miami, millions of gallons of water will surge south toward a remote section of Everglades

  National Park, home to one of the endangered sparrow's last breeding colonies.

  The birds, which nest in grasses close to the ground, could be flooded out. Many experts believe the colony is unlikely to survive.

  Everglades water is watched closely by government agencies. This year the levels are high again because of abundant rain. That's usually good for birds and wildlife, but not always. This year it's definitely not so good for the Cape Sable seaside sparrow.

  There's so much water in the Everglades that the folks in charge need to flush the overflow someplace. If they send it to the park's eastern marshes, it might damage some homes that were built there.

  So instead they're preparing to send the water farther west, where it could wash out a few hundred olive-colored songbirds, birds so rare that most Floridians have never laid eyes on them.

  Pumping, due to start last week, was postponed because of publicity. A hard rain could force the issue, a decision to be made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District.

  Officials in those agencies aren't happy about annihilating the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, but they say they've got few options. They say they're not allowed to flood private property.

  That would be property known as the 81/2 Square Mile Area, notable as one of the only sites west of the Everglades levee where houses went up—about 350 of them. Why that was permitted to happen is no mystery. Somebody was trying to make money.

  Now, whenever there's heavy rainfall, the residents of the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area get flooded. That's because they live in a swamp, and swamps flood; it literally comes with the territory. And when flooding occurs, the folks who live out there complain. Who wouldn't?

  Allowing houses to be built on the wet side of a levee wasn't the most stupid thing Dade County politicians have ever done, but it's close. The price of that stupidity might well be the extermination of another species.

  All that overflow water is being aimed away from the misbegotten houses in the 81/2 Square Mile Area, and straight toward the nesting grounds of the Cape Sable seasides. Biologists say this will be the fourth consecutive season that the sparrows cannot breed in the western part of the park, leaving only about 270 there alive.

  Other colonies occupy eastern marshes, but because of water diversion practices, those areas will soon be too dry for nesting. Experts believe it won't be long before all the birds die off.

  The story is a bleak echo. The last U.S. bird species to become extinct was another Florida sparrow, the dusky seaside. Once thriving in wetlands near the Kennedy Space Center, the dusky was done in by overdevelopment and pesticides.

  Everglades National Park is supposed to offer sanctuary from such man-made threats. Indeed, birds living within the park's vast boundaries don't see many bulldozers or crop dusters.

  Water is a more inescapable presence. The stuff that could drown out the Cape Sable seaside sparrows will be pumped into the park from conservation areas to the north. Efforts to redistribute the flow more evenly will probably come too late to save the birds.

  A study is being done to help decide whether all the houses and lots in the 81/2 Square Mile Area should be repurchased and returned to a natural state. In the meantime, if it comes to a policy choice between soaking a bird and soaking somebody's carpet, the birds will probably lose.

  Too bad they can't learn to build their nests in taller grass.

  Too bad we can't learn not to build our subdivisions in swamps.

  Small Victories

  City gives kids a great reason to give thanks

  November 26, 1986

  Now it will be a good Thanksgiving at 1640 S. Bayshore Drive.

  Now the kids who live there can stay as long as they need. The Miami City Commission said so Tuesday in an act of decency and wisdom.

  The house is owned by CHARLEE, Inc., a nonprofit group that places abused and neglected children in foster home settings. Opened in July 1985, the home on South Bayshore operated successfully and without controversy, until a few neighbors complained this year.

  They didn't complain so much about the kids; it was the idea of such a place in their neighborhood. They said it wasn't really a foster home, but a therapeutic facility. They said it was a zoning matter.

  Three years ago the city said that CHARLEE houses qualified as foster homes, and should be treated the same way. This year a different zoning official gave a less favorable opinion.

  The dispute could have shut down the Bayshore house and three others in the city. Doris Capri, CHARLEE's executive director, said: "The majority of our children do not have healthy homes to return to."

  Curiously, the two most prominent opponents of the Bayshore home, lawyer A. J. Barranco and County Judge Murray Klein, did not appear at Tuesday's meeting. City Hall filled with other neighbors who felt strongly both ways. An attorney for CHARLEE got up to talk about definitions. The city zoning man got up to disagree. The commissioners wrangled about concepts like "equitable estoppel."

  While all this was going on, the kids were home doing their school-work. The house parents, Mima and Fadi Aftimos, kept it a secret that Tuesday was the big day. They didn't want the children to worry. The children have been worried most of their lives.

  Some of them have been beaten and sexually molested by their real parents. The home on Bayshore is the saf
est they've ever known.

  Back at the commission chambers, everybody was agreeing that CHARLEE was a wonderful program, and that the children now living at the Bayshore home are model kids. Even Commissioner J. L. Plummer, who wanted the issue taken to a full-blown public hearing, felt obliged to say: "I gotta tell you, I think the CHARLEE program is doing a terrific job. Let's put that in the record."

  And having put that in the record, Plummer then launched into a rather odd and irrelevant inquisition into the finances at 1640 S. Bayshore—how much are the house parents paid ($9,000 each), how much the state pays CHARLEE for each foster child ($53 per day) and so on. This would have been understandable if the city of Miami were paying the bills, but it isn't. The house is owned outright by CHARLEE and every dime of expenses is paid by the state.

  The real issue was not zoning, finance, or improper definitions. It was the children—whether or not they belonged.

  "These are not juvenile delinquents," said attorney Gary Brooks.

  Said one neighbor, "Give us some control, that's all we ask."

  Said another: "Are we, the residents of this area, going to add to their neglect and abuse? … Let's do what is right and just."

  Another man implied that he saw one of the youngsters jump from the roof into their swimming pool.

  "My kids do the same thing," remarked Mayor Xavier Suarez, "and I don't even have a pool."

  The house on Bayshore is only a few blocks down the road from City Hall. One of the commissioners, Rosario Kennedy, actually took the time to visit. She talked with the children and their foster parents, and even their teachers in school.

  On Tuesday, after listening to nearly two hours of debate over whether the place should be zoned as a foster home or something else, Kennedy finally just said:

  "All I saw was a very neat house with two caring parents … All I saw was a house full of caring and love."