CGH in the Community: Florida Wildlife Corridor Documentary Debut

Clock­wise from top left: One of Carlton Ward Jr.‘s  photos depicting vibrant green trees along a por­tion of the tannin stained Suwannee River, a map showing the 1,000 miles trav­eled in 100 days, people gath­ered on Sunday evening at the Tampa Bay His­tory Center to watch the doc­u­men­tary put together by Elam Stoltzfus and Carlton Ward Jr., Ward addressing the crowd of sup­porters Sunday evening, the crowd that had gath­ered out­side the Tampa Bay His­tory Center to watch the screening, despite the cold, windy weather.(Photos cour­tesy of www​.flori​daw​ildlifecor​ridor​.org and claytongrayhome)

On Sunday, March 3, we joined about 300 other Tampa Bay res­i­dents to cel­e­brate the debut of Elam Stoltzfus’ doc­u­men­tary depicting the explo­ration of the Florida Wildlife Cor­ridor, which launched last Jan­uary 17, 2012.

Over 100 days, Stoltzfus, along with famed Florida pho­tog­ra­pher, Carlton Ward Jr., con­ser­va­tionist Mal­lory Lykes Dim­mitt, and bear biol­o­gist Joe Guthrie, trekked over 1,000 miles starting in the Ever­glades ecosystem into Big Cypress, over to the Ever­glades Agri­cul­tural Area, back to the Okaloa­coochee Slough, across the Caloosa­hatchee, over to Bab­cock Ranch, back along Fisheating Creek toward Lake Okee­chobee, up the Kissimmee River with excur­sions toward the Lake Wales Ridge, up the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, east around Orlando into Ocala National Forest, and north along the O2O cor­ridor (Ocala to Osceola) to Oke­fenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

The mis­sion of this group was to raise aware­ness to have con­nected ecosys­tems between public and pri­vate lands throughout Florida.

If you missed this debut, no wor­ries, check local list­ings for PBS.  Also, Carlton Ward Jr.‘s pho­tographs will be on dis­play at the Tampa Bay His­tory Center until May 5th.