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Exploring a Green Oasis: Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation Acquired 7.4 Acres of Endangered Tropical Hardwood Hammock in Castellow Hammock Park Through the Building Better

Posted on: Sunday, 19 February 2006, 06:00 CST

By Anamirella Marquez, The Miami Herald

Feb. 19--Alongside a rocky trail of perennial butterfly gardens are acres of tropical hardwood hammock -- a dense, vine-entangled forest with many plants species under a cloud of evergreen leaves.

"This is lovely," Annette Melvin said as she viewed the hammock during a tour of Castellow Hammock Park. "I didn't know we had this so close to the city."

Melvin was one of dozens of people who helped celebrate the county's recent purchase of 7.4 acres of hardwood land for the park, located at 22301 SW 162nd Ave., in Redland, about 5 miles south of Cutler Bay's Southland Mall.

Castellow Hammock Park is well known among bird watchers, butterfly enthusiasts and botanists who come to study the array of species that make it home.

During the ceremony on Feb. 11, the public was given a tour to see the newly obtained land.

Walking the rocky trail, Roberto Torres of the nonprofit group The Nature Conservancy pointed to some small reddish-orange tubular shaped Firebush flowers.

"I've got this in my yard," he said. "The butterflies love it."

A few yards ahead, the tour group stopped in its tracks. Straight ahead were three wide-eyed deer gobbling vegetation.

"Oh my God, look, deer!" shouted a child as the adults began snapping pictures.

Torres told the group the animals once belonged to a woman who lived nearby. She set them loose after selling her home and they made the park their new home.

"They are called Sika deer from Japan," he said.

Moving on, the tour stopped for a second time to check out another natural wonder: a three-foot-long dead snake.

"Dad, there's a snake!" Jackie Mantilla, 9, said of the red-and-black reptile.

Tiffany Smith, who works with the county's Environmentally Endangered Land Program, picked it up and rested it on her left arm to study it.

She gave an on-the-spot lesson.

"It's a corn snake," she said. "It may have been caught by a bird that dropped it."

The land purchase, the latest in a series of additions to the 112-acre park, was initiated by the endangered land program with help from The Nature Conservancy and funded by the Building Better Communities Bond Program.

During the past 10 years, the endangered land program has acquired 54 acres of the Castellow and adjacent Ross hammock from different owners, including members of the Matheson family, who were the first to sell the original 50 acres of land to the county in 1962.

"This land acquisition is significant to the resources around the park, the wildlife and plants," said Joe Maguire, natural areas manager for Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation.

"Castellow is now becoming more ecologically sound. It's a hub for migratory birds and wildlife alike."

Only a small portion of the park -- the Environmental Education Center -- is open to the public.

It offers overnight camping, nighttime owl walks and Eco-Adventure tours designed for youth.

"In an area like South Dade that is being developed and where potential land is disappearing, Castellow serves as a park to educate our young people," said Vivian Donnell Rodriguez, the county's Parks and Recreation director.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Miami Herald

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