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By Amanda Peltier Review of Swamplife: People, Gators, and Mangroves Entangled in the Everglades Laura A. Ogden, Copyright 2011 by Regent's of the University of Minnesota.(185 pages). Swamplife: People, Gators, and Mangroves Entangled in the Everglades (2011) by Laura A. Ogden, lays emphasis on a specific body of concepts regarding the impact that human activities and urbanization have had on plants and nonhuman animals within Florida's Everglades. The author illustrates the story through the perspective of the humans that dwell there, in order to shed light on the positive and negative effects of the human lifestyles on the natural habitats of nonhuman animals. This book allows you, the reader, to recognize the differences in the thoughts and treatment of the ecosystem in the Everglades by the different groups of people who share contrary cultures and social class backgrounds, from the Seminole Native American tribe to the wealthy businessmen who urbanized the Glades. In this excerpt, "Within a relatively brief period, about seventy-five years, southern Florida shifted from a largely rural, agrarian, and undeveloped landscape to one of the largest urban centers in the United States"(18); Ogden provides support to what she believes are the causes that ultimately effect the lives of the nonhuman animals in the area. One begins to ponder questions like: what caused such fast and extreme change? What effects has this quick shift had on the environment and nonhuman animals? Will there continue to be an Everglades? The conjuring of these questions are Ogden's exact purpose for writing this book; to challenge the reader to begin to think critically about the effects that our daily life plays on the many natural wonders of the world and the nonhuman animals that call them home. Laura A. Ogden is an associate professor of anthropology at Florida International University. She has conducted fieldwork in the Florida Everglades for the past decade and is coauthor of Gladesmen: Gator Hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffers with Glen Simmons. In addition to Laura A. Ogden's extensive fieldwork, she uses a multitude of references. These include, but are not limited to: books, newspaper archives, photographs, government records, and journal articles. Her research was vast and extremely intelligible. The work and the research she put into this subject is evident making it a reliable source of history and knowledge. The main characters in this book are the gladesmen, the alligators, snakes, mangroves, and fire. Normally, I would not consider fire and mangroves to be characters, but Laura Ogden depicts their important roles in a way that assures they are, in fact, characters. Swamplife is written chronologically, beginning in the late 1800's when the value potential of the land was first being discovered. This book than travels through the cultivation, drainage, and development of two-thirds of the Everglades. Gladesmen are the poor rural whites. This book focuses mainly on the outlawed Ashley Gang, who hid out in the Everglades for years evading the law. The Ashley Gang remains a central figure in the mythology of the Everglades almost a hundred years later. Their story is fascinating. The author made a good choice in using their lives to narrate the life of the Everglades, as they are so prominent that at times it is sensed that the Ashley's were born of the Everglades. It's as though they are as much the Everglades as the snakes and gators. When a person thinks of the Everglades, alligators are commonly the first thought. This book covers the conservation, hunting, and protection laws of gators. Laura A. Ogden does a thorough job of describing how, alligator hunting was one of the most reliable sources of income as alligators could be hunted year round rather than seasonally, as is the case for other games animals. Swamplife talks in detail of how laws have been put in place to help conserve the amount of alligators killed for hides. Though methods of conserving alligators shifted over time, very few alligators lives were saved. Ogden discusses how alligator conservation was crucial, in the Everglades, to the visitors expectations and experience of the "exotic" swamp. Also, how game wardens were brought in to police the hunting of alligators, though true arrests were rare. This merely transformed Everglades hunters into poachers. Alligators weren't the only nonhuman animal to mark their territory in the Glades. Fantastic unnaturally large snakes were also very prevalent and equally threatened. Ogden tells the reader that the Everglades are home to at least twenty-five species of snakes, and how enormous snakes lie concealed in the jungles as hunters chop their way through the constant growing and changing roots and branches. She tells how these snakes and the fear they evoke, altered the mobility of settlers, hunters, visiting explorers, and naturalists. Though, nonhuman residences of the Everglades are ever present throughout this book, for the purpose of my reading, I would have liked them to be the central subjects. It was enlightening to learn of the significant roles that mangroves and fire played in the development of the Everglades. Laura A. Ogden talks at length about how mangroves may be thought of as just trees, but the fact is that they are highly mobile and rhyzomatic. They grow freely, covering the land densely. As well as, how fire was used to keep mosquitoes at bay, mark hunters trails and territories, drive animals out of saw grass, to encourage deer to assist in fresh growth, and to make traveling easier in a "hard- walking" landscape, as well as, a tool for hunting until bull's-eye lanterns came to be. Ogden describes how mangroves map the movements of people, nonhuman animals, water, nutrients, sediment, and plant life in the Everglades. She captures the essence that mangroves are the core of the Everglades, the heart. Swamplife ends with details of how humans saw the potential of opportunity in the vastness of the land, therefore, the lands were drained for development. Laura A. Ogden explains how this guided the way for massive changes to Everglades ecology and wildlife. Also, how it had an extensive impact on the nonhuman animals, including the region's famous wading bird populations, which have been reduced by 90 to 95 percent since the predrainage era. Although this is just one of many example of the extreme damage human development had on nonhuman animals in the Everglades, this book could have been more impactful had Ms. Ogden used more examples like this one. If the reduction of population in these particular birds is so devastating, one can only imagine the impact it's had on other nonhuman animals. The phrase that I feel summarized Swamplife: People, Gators, and Mangroves Entangled in the Everglades, brilliantly comes at the end of the book. Ogden states "The concurrent human pressures of market-driven hunting, changing water levels and cycles, and extensive habitat loss intersected at the same time across the same landscape to threaten alligator populations in the Everglades." (150). In this phrase, the author describes the substantial impact humans have had on the ecosystem of the Everglades and how detrimental this has been on the nonhuman population, particularly on alligators. This is a wonderfully educational and inspiring book. It is a marvelous resource for anyone that is interested in the impacts of developing swampland for human use, how it impacts the nonhuman lives that call the swamps home, the ecosystem, and especially the impacts on alligators. This book is filled with phrases, photographs, and stories that, I feel, give life and a society to those marginalized. It encompasses the life of the swamp, the humans, and every nonhuman part of the Everglades. Ms. Ogden brings understanding to what can't be seen through the naked eye and narrow thought processes. I think that due to the elaborate language used in this book, it is appropriate for higher level education students or as a research tool for those interested in the Everglades, the Ashley Gang, or alligator hunting. Comments are closed.
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