National Geographic magazine: February 1999 @ nationalgeographic.com

National Geographic magazine: February 1999 @ nationalgeographic.com: "water throughout and around the Everglades is managed and controlled by two agencies, the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers. Water, which naturally would have flowed throughout the park, is held in reservoirs, channeled in dikes, and, above all, prevented from spilling into bordering farms and the suburbs of Greater Miami. To water managers, say Pimm and Bass, the drying western prairies of the Everglades in the spring look like an excellent place to dump excess water, which is what happened for several years beginning in 1993. While this protected some homes and roads, it has proved a disaster for the sparrow and, the biologists suspect, for other species, including many wading birds, such as egrets and herons whose nesting patterns have also been disrupted. “We’re losing the sparrow and probably other species just because of water management decisions,” says Bass on the flight back to the airport. “Admittedly, it is a big problem managing the water here, especially in stormy years. But all it takes is holding off a couple of months, as the agencies did last year, to let the birds nest and rear their young. It’s a matter of making the right decision.” If the Cape Sable sparrow’s nesting grounds are not flooded, Pimm and Bass think their population will begin to increase. For other species, though, no decision will change their fate; they are simply doomed to disappear from Earth. "