The Trailblazer

Volunteer Spotlight: Trail CATS The Trail CATS are an amazing group of volunteers who decided that hiking just wasn’t enough – they wanted to do more. Every second Saturday of the month, ELAPP would schedule a trail workday on a site that needed a little extra attention. It was a great way for hikers and their families to come out and do some work on the trails they love to use. We even have employees that used to attend trail workdays prior to coming to work for us full-time! For some of our volunteers, helping one day per month just didn’t cut it. Several of our regular attendees asked if, during their regular hiking excursions, they would be allowed to do some work independently. We said: no problem! While ELAPP does have dedicated staff for each area of the county, that staff also takes care of the 63,000 acres of preserves we are so lucky to have, including the sections that are not open to the public to protect sensitive habitat. As we’ve discussed in previous articles, prescribe...

Meet the Brazilian pepper tree, one of Florida's most widespread and harmful invasive plants. It’s another beautiful winter day in Florida. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the thermometer is hovering at a balmy 70 degrees…and the Brazilian pepper trees are producing thousands upon thousands of berries, each one ready to sprout into another fast-growing, invasive shrub! You may not be able to identify Brazilian pepper from afar yet, but if you live in Florida, you've seen hundreds or maybe even thousands of these plants throughout your life. If you’ve ever driven down I-75 or I-4, you’ve seen countless Brazilian pepper trees standing in beautiful, bushy rows along the side of the highway. They make for a handsome sight, especially when they’re blooming or bearing fruit. But despite the beauty of its blooms and berries, Brazilian pepper is one of Florida’s most harmful invasive plant species. It's so invasive that lawmakers have made it illegal to buy or sell the ...

A lush Florida garden (Daderot / CC0) Some of our favorite garden flowers are actually damaging Florida's natural areas. Here's what to plant instead! Florida is a wonderful place to be a gardener- we get plenty of rain, it almost never freezes here, and our tropical plants are the envy of the continental United States. A drive around Hillsborough County feels like a luxury garden tour; trellises overflow with flowering vines, walkways are edged with colorful blooms, and even the hedges are showy and attractive.  Sadly, while they may be appealing, many of our favorite tropical garden plants have escaped into natural areas and become invasive, damaging plant communities and threatening rare species and habitats. The plants listed below are extremely popular in Florida gardens because they're beautiful, hardy, and easy to grow. Unfortunately, they grow so well because they're all non-native invasive plants with no natural enemies. In fact, these beauties are all on the F...

Enjoy these wildlife scavenger hunts that you can do on your own or with friends and family! As of Saturday, May 2nd, almost all of our Hillsborough County Nature Preserves are open again (except for Apollo Beach Nature Preserve, which remains closed to the public). It's time to get back outside and explore! These scavenger hunts are a great addition to your routine while hiking, bird watching, or simply enjoying the outdoors. Just remember to continue social distancing with those outside of your household and give other hikers plenty of space. These printable scavenger hunts feature species that you can find in nature preserves or parks, but you may have to visit multiple preserves to complete each one, and some species are much harder to find than others. Just click on the link under each section to open that particular scavenger hunt. Then you can either print the file and bring it with you or download it and follow along on your phone or tablet as you hike. Find a preserve near...

It's no secret how this plant spreads- just look at your boots, sleeves, and hair after a hike through the woods! If you hike, hunt, boat, fish, or bird-watch in Florida, you've probably spent some time removing Caesar weed seeds from your clothes, boots, hair, or (hopefully not) your pets’ fur. These seeds will make you contemplate throwing away your hiking boots or possibly shaving your head. If you leave even one seed stuck to a piece of clothing and throw it in the wash, it'll inevitably end up in the sock you put on the next day. Annoying, scratchy, and as sticky as Velcro, these seeds spread to new areas by hitching a ride on humans and animals. Given how easily it disperses, it's no wonder that this is one of the most aggressively invasive plants in Florida. Caesar weed is a pan-tropical species, found in almost every country near the equator. Its spread began hundreds of years ago- in fact, it's been spreading for so long that nobody is quite sure where its ...

Some of Hillsborough County's invasive plants are dangerous not only to native ecosystems, but also to people and pets! Many of us can identify at least one invasive plant; you may have seen some on a hike at a Hillsborough County nature preserve or conservation park, and most Hillsborough County residents probably have at least one species of invasive plant growing in their neighborhood. Our roadsides are lined with Brazilian pepper, cogon grass, and camphor trees, and many other invasive plants have flourished and spread throughout the state. These species are capable not only of growing and reproducing on their own in the wild, but also of expanding their range and threatening or altering native plant communities. Invasive plants in Florida cover hundreds of thousands of acres, threaten many of our imperiled plant species, and cause negative changes to Florida’s ecosystems. Some invasive plants, however, can actually cause damage to humans and livestock as well. There are many i...

Meet the amazing, dedicated staff who help to keep our nature preserves healthy, clean, and accessible! Even if you go hiking, riding, bird watching or kayaking in our nature preserves all the time, you may not get a chance to talk to our staff too often. Fewer than 40 staff manage Hillsborough County's over 63,000 acres of nature preserves, so they're pretty spread out. We want to give you this opportunity to meet and learn about the people who work hard to keep the County's nature preserves in good shape. Our staff do everything from mowing, trash pickup, and fence construction to prescribed fire, invasive species removal, ecological restoration, guided programs and more! For our first staff spotlight, we interviewed Danielle Ivey, one of our area coordinators. She oversees all of the nature preserves in the central area of the county, including favorites like Balm Boyette Scrub Nature Preserve, Alderman's Ford Nature Preserve, Golden Aster Scrub Nature Preserve, and ...