The coastal wilderness of south Florida was the first spot in North America explored by Europeans. Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon sailed across Biscayne Bay in search of the mythical Fountain of Youth in 1513.

Later, travelers like land surveyor Andrew Ellicott recorded the bounty of life in the region. "Fish are abundant," Ellicott wrote in 1799. "[Sea] Turtles are also to be had in plenty; those we took were of three kinds; the loggerhead, hawk-bill, and green."

In the 1800's and 1900's many settlers of the keys earned their living from the bay. Among them were Key West fishermen who collected fast growing, "fine qualify" bay sponges and sold them.

Today commercial fishermen, snorklers, and boaters still reap bountiful rewards from the bay. The bays good health is reflected in the numbers of different kinds of fish — more than 250 — that spend part of their lives in it. Many of the fish that dazzle snorklers and divers on the coral reefs by day feed in the bay by night. And, like the mangrove shoreline, the bay plays a critical role as a fish nursery. The young of many coral reef fish, such as parrot and butterfly fish, and sports fish, such as grunts, snappers, and the highly prized Spanish Mackerel, find food and shelter from big hungry predators in the bay's thick jungle of mangrove grasses.

Bay Peering into the crystal waters of Biscayne Bay it is hard to imagine either its past of its future clouded. The bay seems suspended in time. While neighboring Miami has mushroomed into a metropolis of more than 1 1/2 million people, the bay appears to have captured the magic of the Fountain of Youth that eluded Ponce de Leon. It has remained beautiful and relatively unspoiled. Though thousands of years old, it is still vibrant with life. But this has not always been true.

Earlier in this century parts of the bay were dying. In some areas to the north of the park, pollutants were poisoning the bay and construction was sending suffocating amounts of sediments into it. Today, after years of cleanup, the north bay is recovering and the rest of the bay remains nearly pristine.

In 1895 biologist Hugh Smith declared that Biscayne Bay was "one of the finest bodies of water on the coast of Florida." In another hundred years, if well-protected, it still could be.

Return to Top

RELATED GORP LINKS
GORP Parks & Preserves
Florida Resources
GORPtravel