So read one young woman’s sign this morning, 40 miles west of Miami on the Tamiami Trail, in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s latest brainstorm is to build an ICE prison in the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve, a plan he dubs “Alligator Alcatraz”.
James Uthmeier came to notoriety as the brains behind the diversion of $10 million in public Medicare funds into Gov. DeSantis’ dark money campaign against the Florida ballot initiative to legalize marijuana.
This would be the same A.G. Uthmeier who is now held in civil contempt for advising Florida law enforcement agencies they should ignore a federal judge’s order limiting enforcement of a Florida statute creating a state immigration policy.
Hundreds of people showed up this morning to protest Alligator Alcatraz. The line of parked cars was 1/4 mile long on one side of the road and I didn’t measure the line on the other side. Virtually all the cars driving through gave us positive toots on the horn and thumbs up. Zero disapproval.
Click any photo to see it full size.
Betty Osceola speaks. That’s Clyde Butcher on the left.
Uthmeier is promoting this site for an immigration prison because, according to him, it wouldn’t need a perimeter fence since nobody can escape through the Everglades. What a moron. Does any intelligent person think that immigrants who escaped gangs by walking through the tropical forests of the Panama’s Darien Gap will be stopped by the inviting waters of a South Florida cypress swamp? My wife and I take children and geezers on swamp walks through the Big Cypress.
If any immigrants did escape, Miccosukees and Seminoles living nearby would likely take them in. These First Nation folks have a long history of hiding fugitives from the U.S. Government in the swamps of South Florida. The proud Miccosukee Tribe never signed a treaty with the U.S. Government.
No, the real reason for a 1000 bed ICE prison at Mile 48 on the Tamiami Trail is the Dade-Collier Transition Airport. So easy to lock people up out of sight then fly them out of the country in the middle of the night.
This land is jointly owned by Miami-Dade and Collier Counties. Will our County Mayor and Commission fight to prevent the state from snatching it for an immigration prison?
The young woman got it right: “Fuck Alligator Alcatraz”. Silence is complicity.
What National Park offers so many opportunities for exciting wildlife encounters as the Everglades?
In 1979, Professor Tim Williams, wrote me a grad school recommendation letter that ended with this line:
“If I were planning a research expedition to the mosquito-infested swamps of Hell, I would choose Philip as my field assistant.”
I was never 100% sure if Tim meant that as a compliment, but to my prospective grad school advisor, Mike Beecher, it sounded like high praise so he took me on.
With that reputation as a prelude, I’m embarrassed to report that a year ago, in June of 2024, Black Salt Marsh Mosquitoes kicked by butt (well, bit my butt, to be precise) and drove me out of my favorite Everglades kayak-fishing spot when I’d barely gotten started.
I studied mosquitoes in the lab and I’m not a mosquito sissy.
This is my hand, feeding a precious batch of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes selected for the “Tiki Bar” phenotype in the which this normally diurnal mosquito is hyperactive after sundown.
Even I have my limit, and the Black Salt Marsh Mosquito (BSMM) found it that morning.
Determined vampirism of the summer BSSM hoard provides solitude for anyone hardy enough to fish the tidal mangrove estuaries of the Everglades backcountry. That morning, 30 minutes before sunrise, I was the only human within miles, attempting to cast a topwater fly at a large, actively feeding snook. The BSSMs were so brutal, it was hard to pay attention, much less savor the splendor. But the one single mosquito that managed the coup de grâce somehow found her way inside my head net, whereupon I inhaled her. Ten minutes of hard coughing to dislodge that mosquito from my trachea, while her sisters and cousins bit me through my clothes and chewed my exposed finger tips (despite the insect repellant) – that was too much. I gave up and went home with my bitten tail between my itching legs.
Here’s what my pants looked like after 15 minutes.
The secret antidote to mosquito bites:
I don’t much react to bites of local mosquitoes, but the number of BSSM bites that day overwhelmed my acquired defenses. To sleep that night I had to take the antidote, the invention of my clever FIU colleague, Dr. Laura Serbus.
Read the labels before ingesting, right?
Mosquito bites irritate our skin via two histamine receptors, H1 and H2. H1 receptors produce about 20% of the itch and H2 receptors the other 80%. Typical antihistamines, like Benadryl, only block the H1. I use cetirazine instead, which lasts 24 hours and doesn’t make me drowsy. To block the H2, I use Pepsid AC, an over-the-counter drug for excess stomach acid. Not everybody reacts well to the H2 blockers, but I’m OK with them. Itching disappears completely for 12 hours.
* * *
Back into the cauldron on Friday, June 13th, 2025
It took me a full year to recover the motivation to venture back into Mosquito Hell, succumbing once again to the prospect of fly fishing snook, juvenile tarpon, and redfish from the intimacy of the kayak. Winds in the open were 14 mph with gusts to 22 mph and my usual flats and creek mouths were too exposed. That left the sheltered mangrove coves, areas best left for winter when the mosquito population is at a dull roar instead of a loud one.
This time I had to better prepare myself for the onslaught of the June BSSM population. Here’s what I wore:
Fishing pants. AFTCO, synthetic, light tan
Snow gaiters, calf height
Second pair of fishing pants
Sand socks
Crocs
Hoodie fishing shirt, knit fabric
Tight weave sun shirt, with top button fastened and collar turned up
Tilley hat
No-see-um proof head net, Cochrans
Insect repellant (Lemon Citronella) on my exposed fingertips and the edges of my gaiters where they met my Crocs sandals
It worked well enough at keeping BSSMs from reaching my skin that I could enjoy a good morning fly fishing tarpon & snook. A great morning, in fact. I lost count of the tarpon hits.
The BSSMs found a vulnerable spot where the gaiters met the Crocs [I’ll spare you the photo of my red-spotted ankle]. Next time, I will wear ankle-high neoprene dive booties instead of the Crocs.
Another twenty skeeters somehow managed to bite me on my butt [definitely no photo], though damned if I know how. This happened before while camping on the Arctic tundra and I couldn’t figure it out that time either.
High concentration DEET works pretty well but dissolves plastics on contact (thinking of my fly line here). Picaridin works well too but lasts half as long as DEET.
Mosquitoes don’t see red light (ditto snook, tarpon, redfish). I outfitted my head lamp with a red lens (3D printers rock) so I could see to set up the boat without getting mobbed by BSSMs and no-see-ums.
Two things I don’t think will work for me:
(1) mosquito netting suit. It’s too easy to tear and simple for BSMMs to bite through where it touches my skin or another article of clothing.
(2) permethrin-soaked clothing. Permethrin is a good mosquito excito-repellant, but new research shows it damages our heart and nervous system.
The next puzzle: How do you get 300 mosquitos out of a car?
It took three days to fully rid the car of BSSMs. Several hid in my stuff and found their way into the house. Next time, I’m going to open the car’s rear hatch and all four doors, then drive backwards around the parking lot in circles as fast as I can. Other suggestions are welcome by email or in the comments section below.
buzz buzz buzz.
P.S. I received a comment worth sharing from Dr. David Glabman: “As for the mosquitos in your car maybe try capturing a bat for release in the car since he will eat many times his weight in them.”
Regarding Dr. Glabman’s idea, I very much like the concept. I’d need one of those tropical leaf-gleaning bats that can forage in tight spaces, and I’d have to wait until nightfall for the bat to feed. I do need to drive home with fewer vampires for company. Mabel’s Orchard Spider, however, might do the job. They’re our most common orbweaver, voracious predators of mosquitoes, diurnal, completely harmless to humans, and their possession does not require federal and state permits. I might release a couple in the passenger seat next trip to see what they can do.
… as in “The Burmese python is decimating native wildlife across their invaded range.” Miami Herald, 12-Jun-2025
Marsh Rabbit photo swiped from Animal Diversity Web. Such cute ears!
People today use “decimate” synonymously with “devastate” and it bugs me.
These two words sound similar, but to “decimate” is to reduce by 1/10th, not reduce to 1/10th.
I’d be thrilled if pythons had only decimated Everglades mammal populations.
Origin – The verb “decimate” dates back to ancient Rome. My high school Latin teacher, Mr. Downum, explained that if a member of the Roman Legion committed a heinous crime, and nobody among the ranks would identify the culprit, all the soldiers were lined up and every tenth one was killed. Wikipedia provides a similar explanation with more detail and historic record, albeit limited. Decimation didn’t happen a lot after the scary new word got around. The original meaning gave “decimate” the power to change human behavior for the better.
Here are more examples in which over-educated people are decimating the lexical diversity and power of our language:
“The first time I drove into Tuscaloosa after the storms, I had to pull over on the side of the road to take in the decimation and collect myself.” Joyce Vance, 17-May-2025
“A Fungus Decimated American Bats. Now Scientists Are Fighting Back” Headline, The New York Times, 17-Sep-2024
“In 1989, Hurricane Hugo decimated much of the remaining old-growth forest that is vital habitat for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers, Leuconotopicus borealis.” @grrlscientist, 11-Oct-2024
It’s everywhere. Even Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman conflate “decimate” and “devastate”, two erudite professors with a mastery of English.
In a living language, word meanings can change. Still, this one sticks in my craw every time I read it. Seems a shame to lose such a graphic and powerful word to confusion in common parlance.
* * *
I’d tell this to the marsh rabbits in the Everglades, if I could find one to tell. Not that a marsh rabbit ever listened to what I had to say. Not even back in the pre-python glory days, when legions of round-eared bunnies lined up ten feet apart along the swale of the Shark Valley tram road every evening. Had they merely been decimated by Burmese pythons, they’d line up today eleven feet apart. Like coral reefs and trees dripping with migrant warblers, or a savored word that’s lost its meaning to misuse, I miss them.
Eye of the Cormorant 