Masterpiece foretold a legacy

May 17, 1998

It was the first Friday this century that the Everglades awoke without Marjory Stoneman Douglas. In the bay where the great river empties, the sun rose vermillion over the Calusa Keys and hung there fixed like some holy ornament, ember-bright in a lavender rim of haze.

Near Whipray Basin an osprey enthroned on a wooden stake flared its wings and scanned the shallows for breakfast. Snowy egrets and blue herons high-stepped grassy banks in search of shrimp. Lemon sharks and spinners prowled the channels.

Closer to the mainland, at a place called Snake Bight, lives a flock of rare wild flamingos, pink and skittish confetti in the mangroves. Not far away a creek mouth is patrolled by several lean alligators and a single plump crocodile. At times the mullet run so thick that the water froths with predation.

Such spectacular eruptions of life and death—all flowing from one river that's a choking wisp of its old self; a river that by every scientific measure is dying itself. It might have been dead already, dried up and perhaps even plowed, were it not for the ardor of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

You know about her book; a monumental book, The Everglades: River of Grass. But how many important books are published, acclaimed and then forgotten? For Douglas, her masterpiece wasn't the culmination of a life's work, but the beginning.

The book came out in November, 1947, a month before the dedication of Everglades National Park. What a park, too, the entire lush tip of the Florida peninsula, preserved forever! How easy it would have been for Douglas and her cohorts to congratulate themselves and let it end there, with that grand achievement.

But she was unlike many journalists. She owned a grown-up attention span. Even after the book became celebrated she remained not only intrigued by her subject, but passionate about it.

And she knew from science and common sense that the park alone wasn't enough, and would in fact be reduced to baked tundra and slime ponds if the rest of the Everglades was not similarly protected. She kept writing books, of course, but she also sent letters and made speeches and generally raised hell.

Long crucial years went by when not enough folks took notice, particularly those in Tallahassee and Washington. Meanwhile, the Everglades went from fire to flood to drought, and more and more of its water was siphoned for new cities, subdivisions and farms.

Douglas was discouraged, but never beaten. The older she got, the stronger and more insistent her voice became. Finally in the '705, when water woes began to jeopardize development, politicians discovered the Everglades.

And here's what they learned: A broad and avid constituency already existed, thanks to some blunt-spoken, floppy-hatted old woman who wrote a book a long time ago. Lots of people, it seemed, already cared about the Everglades. They wanted very much to save it.

So suddenly every Tom, Dick, and Corner who ran for office in Florida was waxing lyrical about Mrs. Douglas' river of grass. In shirtsleeves they pilgrimmed to Coconut Grove for a prized private audience and, if they were lucky, a photograph.

Because a photograph with the famous lady herself was worth votes. This they'd figured out, these genius politicians: People really loved those Everglades. How about that?

Douglas, naturally, used such occasions to make plain her skepticism. Do more, she would say. Do it faster. Being an icon was tolerable only because she could be an icon with teeth.

So part of her must have been pleased, after half a century of gnashing, when billions of dollars finally were pledged to fix the whole works, from Lake Okeechobee to the Ten Thousand Islands.

Can they be "restored?" Impossible. Patched up, cleaned up, re-jiggered—maybe. Shamefully little has been done so far, but Douglas leaves vocal legions who promise to keep the heat on.

She wasn't a misty-eyed dreamer but a wary realist. She understood the slagpit of politics, and what was needed to make a ripple. And she would not have continued fighting to the age of 109 if she'd believed the cause was lost.

Undoubtedly she would have found pleasure in the warmth of Friday's teasing sunrise over Florida Bay, and in the skittering baitfish and aristocratic wading birds and all-embracing solitude. But she'd also have reminded us that what we were seeing, no matter how singularly exquisite, was but a waning shadow of what existed not so long ago, in the slow blink of earth-time.

The last chapter of Marjory Stoneman Douglas' book is called "The Eleventh Hour," and in it she warns of time running out. "There is a balance in man … " she wrote 51 years ago, "one which has set against his greed and his inertia and his foolishness; his courage, his will, his ability slowly and painfully to learn and to work together."

To do more, in other words. To never give up.

Wild Kingdom

Dateline: Big Pine Key

Deer poachers' tactics show true cowardice

August 20, 1985

This is how the brave hunter works.

He conies at dusk and parks by the side of the road, where he waits with a rifle across his lap.

As night falls, a delicate silhouette slips out of the pinelands and crosses the pavement. The deer is graceful and small, no larger than a golden retriever. It is not afraid of the car or the man, because each evening now there are cars and people.

This is the place they come to feed the rare Key deer.

It is illegal to do so, but the tourists come anyway with their Toll House cookies and stale Doritos and picnic leftovers. They bring the kids to see Bambi close up, not understanding how easy they make it for the brave hunter.

Because the deer are losing their fear of man.

And the brave hunter is clever. He also brought morsels tonight, something the animals will like.

The brave hunter holds the goodies out the window of the car and, sure enough, the deer stops its crossing. Its velvet nose twitches, the ears flutter.

The man speaks softly, just like the cooing tourists. The deer takes one tentative step toward the car. Then another.

The brave hunter urges the deer to come, take the food from his hand. So the deer, not knowing any better, approaches the car.

And when the animal is very close, perhaps no more than eight feet away, the brave hunter raises his rifle and fires, killing the tame quarry with one or two or even three shots.

Since the Key deer is protected by law, and since the brave hunter is not quite brave enough to do time in a federal prison, he must be cautious. He quickly skins out the deer and finds a place in the car to conceal the venison, which is easy because there is hardly enough for steaks. Then the brave hunter escapes down U.S. 1.

The Key deer are slowly dying off.

Only 250 to 300 adult animals are left. Deborah Holle, manager of Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key, already has found 25 dead this year, most the victims of roving dogs and careless drivers—the cost of the rapid development of Big Pine.

The poachers' toll is high but unknown, for the evidence vanishes with the culprit. The preferred weapon is a gun, though Holle says knives, bludgeons and even more ghastly methods are used to ensure a silent kill. A few months ago she picked up a discarded garbage bag and inside found a severed doe's head, one leg, a tawny hide and a man's sandal.

Sadly, the deer are not wise enough to know the difference between a goofy camper handing out Pringles and a poacher handing out death. Rangers warn visitors not to feed the deer and signs are posted to trees, but nothing works. "For the deer's sake," Holle says, "we have to keep the wild in them."