Iconic airboats won’t be part of Everglades culture for much longer

The Miami Herald ^ | 12/27/13 | Sue Cocking

[ExSoldier]

Privately operated airboats, icons of the Gladesmen culture of the Everglades, will be dwindling in number because the Park Service isn’t granting any new licenses.

[Blue Collar Christian]

Then they bring more moats, and aircraft...

[Blue Collar Christian]

moats=boats

DOH!

[daniel1212]

As for longtime commercial airboat tour operators along the Trail — Coopertown, Everglades Safari Park, and Gator Park — the park proposes to buy their properties, turn them into concessionaires and confine their operations to a “front country zone” of about 10,000 to 11,000 acres just south of the Trail. If the park’s preferred plan is adopted sometime next year, then the rest of the East Everglades — more than 80,000 acres — would be designated as wilderness with no mechanical propulsion — even bicycles — allowed.

Park planner Fred Herling says the aim is to strike a balance between the desires of airboaters and other visitors such as paddlers and hikers. - http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/27/3838829/iconic-airboats-wont-be-part-of.html#emlnl=Five_Minute_Herald#storylink=cpy

Sad.

[1010RD]

Yep, it’s like watching the elected version of Patty Hearst writ large.

[GladesGuru]

HERL ALERT! Park planner Fred Herling says the aim is to strike a balance between the desires of airboaters and other visitors such as paddlers and hikers." \Herling's statement is classic bureaucrapic bafflegab and is both deliberately deceptive and misleading. Most all of that area is unsuitable for walking or kayaking. That nasty ParcPerson knows it, too. For an excellent video on ParcMan, Google "Big Park". www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xvAB6DAhtM‎

[tet68]

I’m just curious but when an airliner crashes in the
middle of that 80,000 acres of swamp wilderness, how
do they propose to reach the crash site?

[tomkat]

Thanks for your #30 above .. interesting (and sad) stuff.

Btw, sounds like ol' Fred would make for some dandy chum.

[driftdiver]

I’ve been kayaking in the everglades. Beautiful but a lotta work. Impossible to reach those areas and no place to overnight.

[ExSoldier]

Oh, and for posterity, I've been to a decommissioned Nike missile battery in the Glades...

That battery was designed by my late father....

[ExSoldier]

Lincoln Vale

[GladesGuru]

“Thanks for your #30 above .. interesting (and sad) stuff.
Btw, sounds like ol’ Fred would make for some dandy chum.”

I am happy it pleased you.

As for Fred, he was known as Fred the WonderDog because he was reputed to be able to walk, talk, and chew gum - and, wonder of wonders, he could do any two at the same time.

I suspect some AgencyPerson would cite any boat using Fred for chum due to the noxious slick visible for miles downstream.

[daniel1212]

The idea is increasing to total control by the the government, which both the increasing crime (not being controlled from with by God and conscience) as well as deceived thinking (believing lies from Hell over the Bible) promotes.

[ExSoldier]

May as well take an M-79 along with you and take out the government gunboats when they close in.

Interesting concept but mmmmmmm somewhat FLAWED in the application by a couple of decades or so.

"M79?" "Government Gunboats?" Are you still stuck in the last Rambo movie?

Drones, dude! If you want to be final about it, armed drones. A kinetic citation in final form with no appeal as our own Travis McGee's character's might use.

[ilovesarah2012]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_401

Robert “Bud” Marquis, an airboat pilot, was out frog gigging with Ray Dickinsin when they witnessed the crash. They rushed in to rescue survivors. Marquis received burns to his face, arms and legs—a result of spilled jet fuel from the crashed TriStar—but continued shuttling people into and out of the crash site that night and the next day. For his efforts, he received the Humanitarian Award from the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation and the “Alumitec – Airboat Hero Award”, from the American Airboat Search and Rescue Association. In 2007, the Homestead, Florida resident was given an award plaque.[16] He died on November 21, 2008, from complications stemming from injuries he sustained in a fall a month earlier.[17]

I remember the night that happened. I lived in Hialeah and saw helicopters all night flying over my house taking the injured to Hialeah Hospital, among others. Airboaters rescued a lot of people that night.

[ilovesarah2012]

But this is fine:

Oil drilling has expanded in western Everglades
Michele Bachmann comment highlights years of industry operations
September 12, 2011|By David Fleshler, Sun Sentinel
Republican politicians caught flak recently for suggesting oil exploration in the Everglades, but it’s actually been going on there for decades.

In fact, in the past year oil drilling in the western Everglades has quietly expanded.

BreitBurn Energy Partners, a Los Angeles company that has acquired leases on three South Florida oil fields, drilled five new wells in 2010 and 2011 on the eastern edge of Big Cypress National Preserve, a rugged wilderness inhabited by panthers, blackbears and more than two dozen other protected species.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-09-12/news/fl-everglades-oil-20110912_1_oil-drilling-oil-fields-south-florida-wildlands-association

[MaxMax]

The Government will still have all the rights they take away from taxpayers. Snipers from the air to enforce it also.

[Rodamala]

Ok... fine... Sharks with laserbeams it is. Bwahahah!

[ExSoldier]

I remember the night that happened.

Me too. I was in high school and lived in Coral Gables (still my home). At the time I was very big into catching with my best buddy and selling snakes to both the local pet stores ($8 a foot in length) for rat snakes to be pets and to the Serpentarium when we got a moccasin or the extremely rare Coral Snake ($30 a foot but they only went about 3 feet in length). We usually went out in the summers for more $$$ instead of taking more mundane summer jobs. Got us ready for the army later on. He went Special Forces and retired from there as a Lieutenant Colonel and I went regular Infantry and later Armor getting out just before making Captain, which I made in the reserves. I know we had friends who were servicing rescue efforts to the wreck with their airboats. I was just a sophomore and couldn't drive yet. My buddy was a year ahead of me and has a great little CJ Jeep we often drove out to Loop Road.

[ExSoldier]

Is that Archer? I love that series!

[ilovesarah2012]

My stepdad worked for Eastern for 34 years. It was a very sad event. One of those things you never forget. Nice to meet another Floridian. I live in SC now but grew up in South Florida.