Jungle Island | |
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25°47′10″N80°10′27″W / 25.78611°N 80.17417°W | |
Date opened | December 20, 1936 June 28, 2003 (at current location) | (as Parrot Jungle)
Location | Miami, Florida |
Website | www |
Jungle Island, formerly Parrot Jungle, is a relaunched eco-adventure park on Watson Island, Miami, Florida, United States. [1] The park is re-opened following a series of major renovations after the park incurred damage from Hurricane Irma. [2] The park features new pop-up waterslides, an outdoor wind tunnel flight experience, zip lines, escape rooms, a Nerf battle stadium and other attractions.
Originally named Parrot Jungle, it was moved from its original suburban location in Pinecrest, Florida to its present location just east of downtown Miami and after the site was purchased for Pinecrest Gardens in 2002. It was renamed as Parrot Jungle Island. In 2007, the park was again renamed to Jungle Island.
Parrot Jungle was a zoological park south of Miami on 20 acres (8.1 ha) of property at Killian Drive and South Red Road.
Founded in 1936 by Francis "Franz" & Louise Scherr, Parrot Jungle is one of the oldest tourist attractions established in the Miami area. [3] [4] Scherr would often visit another attraction, Monkey Jungle, owned by Joe Drummond. [3] On one visit when Scherr was again making one of his many suggestions for improvement, Drummond became fed up and told him, "Go start your own jungle." [3] Scherr, who owned and operated a feed and supply store in Homestead, became intrigued with the idea of building an attraction where birds would "fly free". [3] Scherr leased 20 acres (81,000 m2) of hammock land for US$25(equivalent to about $527 in 2022). [3] The site was previously a naturist resort. [3] Parrot Jungle was built as a winding nature trail dug through the coral rock and hammock land, indigenous to the area. All the natural plants were left undisturbed, and the entrance was built on Red Road.
The attraction opened on December 20, 1936, to about 100 visitors. Each person paid 25 cents to see and hear Scherr talk about his birds, trees and flowers. [3] Since 1936, over a million visitors have visited Parrot Jungle. [5] [ page needed ] Among its many famous visitors were Sir Winston Churchill, [5] [ page needed ] [6] film director Steven Spielberg, and former US President Jimmy Carter. [5] [ page needed ]
In 1988 Bern Levine purchased Parrot Jungle from the Scherr family. [7] On December 17, 2002, the Village of Pinecrest purchased the Parrot Jungle site with the aim of developing the site as Pinecrest Gardens. On March 8, 2003 Pinecrest Gardens opened as a municipal park. The original site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011 as the Parrot Jungle Historic District. [6] [8] The actual attraction moved to a new waterfront location on Watson Island, between downtown Miami and South Beach. [7] It opened on June 28, 2003 as Parrot Jungle Island. [9] Until 2004 exotic birds were sold. [4] On June 28, 2007, four years after the park first opened at its bayfront location, Jungle Island became the official name. [10]
As of 2003 [update] there were 1,000 varieties of parrots among the 3,000 animals at Parrot Jungle Island. [9] The theme park's landmark is the sails covering the Jungle Theater, an arena where "Tale of the Tiger", featuring large cats and wildlife and other shows are presented. Hercules, a 900-pound liger, a cross between a lion and a tiger, is housed near the Jungle Theater. In the Parrot Bowl, the "Winged Wonders" show highlights birds from around the world, including the Andean condor, cassowary (the only trained cassowary in the world), and king vulture. In the "Serpentarium" (named in honor of Bill Haast's famed Miami Serpentarium), a wide spectrum of animals are presented from African penguins to alligator snapping turtles, boa constrictor snakes to lemurs.
Various other animal feedings, keeper talks and casual presentations occur throughout the park daily. There is a petting zoo where visitors can interact with a number of domestic and exotic animals, including an experience with red kangaroos. The park's "Everglades Habitat" recreates the ecosystem of the Florida Everglades, featuring much of the natural flora and fauna found in the natural environment.
A $20 million redesign with zip lines, swimming facilities and other new attractions and restaurants was planned for late 2017. [11]
Jungle Island opened up a water park for guests with a view of downtown Miami. [12] The water park features several obstacle courses, riptide rapids, slides, and a climbing wall. During summer months, the park offers their "Summer Savings Ticket," granting entry into both the main park and the water park. Occupancy of the water park is usually restricted to 60 people at a time, with a duration of one to two hours. The section of the beach is privately owned by Jungle Island and is currently closed due to Hurricane Irma.
The landscaping for the new 18 acre (7.3 ha) site was begun in 2000 with a four foot elevation change. [13] The four year site development was designed to be environmentally sustainable, minimizing the use of fertilizers and pesticides. [13] In well-traveled areas, vegetation was planted that stays healthy, green and stable despite heavy foot traffic, without the use of fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. Jungle Island also uses an integrated pest management system which employs biological controls, reducing the need for pesticides. [13]
Jungle Island has taken on a role in the greater Miami and the beaches environmental movement. Jungle Island purchased carbon credits to offset a special event. [14] Jungle Island also hosts environmental conferences and events including Gateway To Green, [15] Energy Smart Florida, [16] and Earth Miami. [14] Some of the proceeds from the Earth Miami event were to be donated to the Everglades Foundation. [14]
Monroe County is a county in the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 82,874. Its county seat is Key West. Monroe County includes the islands of the Florida Keys and comprises the Key West-Key Largo Micropolitan Statistical Area. Over 99.9% of the county's population lives on the Florida Keys. The mainland, which is part of the Everglades, comprises 87% of the county's land area and is virtually uninhabited with only 17 people recorded in the 2020 census.
The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles (97 km) wide and over 100 miles (160 km) long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state. The Everglades experiences a wide range of weather patterns, from frequent flooding in the wet season to drought in the dry season. Throughout the 20th century, the Everglades suffered significant loss of habitat and environmental degradation.
Pinecrest is a suburban village in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The village is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,388.
Biscayne National Park is an American national park located south of Miami, Florida in Miami-Dade County. The park preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs. Ninety-five percent of the park is water, and the shore of the bay is the location of an extensive mangrove forest. The park covers 172,971 acres and includes Elliott Key, the park's largest island and northernmost of the true Florida Keys, formed from fossilized coral reef. The islands farther north in the park are transitional islands of coral and sand. The offshore portion of the park includes the northernmost region of the Florida Reef, one of the largest coral reefs in the world.
Flamingo is the southernmost headquarters of Everglades National Park, in Monroe County, Florida, United States. Flamingo is one of the two end points of the 99-mile (159-km) Wilderness Waterway, and the southern end of the only road through the park from Florida City. It began as a small coastal settlement on the eastern end of Cape Sable on the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, facing Florida Bay. The actual town of Flamingo was located approximately 4+1⁄2 miles west of the current Flamingo campground area. All that remains of the former town are a few remnants of building foundations, and it is considered a ghost town.
Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), and part of the Everglades Headwaters NWR complex, located just off the western coast of North Hutchinson Island in the Indian River Lagoon east of Sebastian, Florida. The refuge consists of a 3-acre (12,000 m2) island that includes an additional 2.5 acres (10,000 m2) of surrounding water and is located off the east coast of Florida of the Indian River Lagoon. Established by an executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt on March 14, 1903, Pelican Island was the first National wildlife refuge in the United States. It was created to protect egrets and other birds from extinction through plume hunting. The oldest government wildlife refuge of any kind in North America is the Lake Merritt Bird Refuge in Oakland, California. Oakland Mayor Samuel Merritt declared it a wildlife refuge for migrating birds in 1869. In 1870, the state of California designated Lake Merritt a state game refuge.
Watson Island is a neighborhood and man-made island in Biscayne Bay, in Miami, Florida. It is located Immediately east of the Central Business District and Arts & Entertainment District neighborhoods of downtown Miami and is connected to the mainland and South Beach, Miami Beach by the MacArthur Causeway.
The Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is a 145,188-acre (587.55 km2) wildlife sanctuary is located west of Boynton Beach, in Palm Beach County, Florida. It is also known as Water Conservation Area 1 (WCA-1). It includes the most northern remnant of the historic Everglades wetland ecosystem.
Sarasota Jungle Gardens is a tourist attraction located in Sarasota, Florida, United States since 1939. The gardens contain over 10 acres (4.0 ha) of botanical plantings along with bird and animal shows. It is open to the public for a per-use ticket fee and also offers yearly membership passes.
Flamingo Gardens is a 60-acre (24 ha) botanical garden and wildlife sanctuary, located just west of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and north of Miami at 3750 South Flamingo Road, Davie, Florida, United States. It is open to the public for a fee.
The Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens, also known as Zoo Miami, is a zoological park and garden in Miami and is the largest zoo in Florida. Originally established in 1948 at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Zoo Miami relocated in 1980 as Miami MetroZoo to the former location of the Naval Air Station Richmond, southwest of Miami in southern unincorporated Miami-Dade County, surrounded by the census-designated places of Three Lakes (north), South Miami Heights (south), Palmetto Estates (east) and Richmond West (west).
Discovery Cove is a theme park owned and operated by United Parks & Resorts, and located in Orlando, Florida. It is the sister park of SeaWorld Orlando and Aquatica Orlando. Visitors to the park can interact with a range of marine animals including bottlenose dolphins.
Pinecrest Gardens is a 20-acre (81,000 m2) park in Pinecrest, Florida on the corner of Southwest 111th Street and Southwest 57th Avenue.
Shark Valley is a geological depression at the head of the Shark River Slough in far western Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is currently part of Everglades National Park. Shark Valley empties into Shark River in the Ten Thousand Islands of Monroe County. Shark Valley characteristically includes sawgrass prairie that floods during the rainy season, hence the name "river of grass"—Pa-Hay-Okee, from the Mikasuki language—for such marshes in the Everglades. Shark Valley features a Visitor Center with educational displays, a park video, an underwater camera and informational brochures. The entrance to Shark Valley is located along Tamiami Trail near the Miami-Dade–Collier County line.
There are a number of environmental issues in Florida. A large portion of Florida is a biologically diverse ecosystem, with large wetlands in the Everglades. Management of environmental issues related to the everglades and the larger coastal waters and wetlands have been important to the history of Florida and the development of multiple parts of the economy of Florida, including the influential agricultural industry. This biodiversity leaves much of Florida's ecological ecosystem vulnerable to invasive species and human sources of industrial pollution and waste.
An ongoing effort to remedy damage inflicted during the 20th century on the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, is the most expensive and comprehensive environmental repair attempt in history. The degradation of the Everglades became an issue in the United States in the early 1970s after a proposal to construct an airport in the Big Cypress Swamp. Studies indicated the airport would have destroyed the ecosystem in South Florida and Everglades National Park. After decades of destructive practices, both state and federal agencies are looking for ways to balance the needs of the natural environment in South Florida with urban and agricultural centers that have recently and rapidly grown in and near the Everglades.
Tropical hardwood hammocks are closed canopy forests, dominated by a diverse assemblage of evergreen and semi-deciduous tree and shrub species, mostly of West Indian origin. Tropical hardwood hammocks are found in South Florida or the Everglades, with large concentrations on the Miami Rock Ridge, in the Florida Keys, along the northern shores of Florida Bay, and in the Pinecrest region of the Big Cypress Swamp.