The removal of dead vegetation from SCCF conservation lands as a result of the hurricanes of the last three years is an unprecedented, labor-intensive, and expensive task.

While storm surge events have occurred periodically over the island’s 5,000-year history that would kill off some trees in the lower areas, pre-Ian Sanibel had not experienced a substantial storm surge event since 1926. Nor had the island ever had such a density of trees in its interior.

“We are dealing with a massive quantity of dead vegetation — primarily trees and shrubs,” said SCCF Wildlife & Habitat Management Director Chris Lechowicz. “This is a learning experience and a historic challenge.”

Many hardwood trees that are highly susceptible to saltwater intrusion were affected by Ian and took a year and a half or more to perish. Their peril was exacerbated by Helene and Milton.

“We’re talking about thousands of trees that had infiltrated the island’s historic grasslands over the last half century or more,” said Lechowicz.

Sanibel’s historic grasslands

Prior to the opening of the causeway in 1963, most of the Sanibel’s interior was open canopy grasslands, both in uplands and wetlands. It was kept this way, naturally, due to somewhat frequent wildlfires from lightning strikes that would burn the grasses and low shrubs in typically low-intensity burns that went through quickly.

Mature trees typically survived these fires as young trees were burned out, which kept the interior mostly open canopy habitat with sporadic clusters of trees in low density.

“As the island was developed, it went through a succession from grasslands to hardwood forests or tropical hammocks due to the lack of wildfire and the large gap in major storm surge events,” Lechowicz explained.

Wildfires were extinguished due to an increasing resident and business population, as well as the establishment and infiltration of exotic plants such as Brazilian pepper, etc.,  that invaded open canopy areas.

Grasslands provide vital habitat for wildlife

Wildlife such as gopher tortoises (Gopherus Polyphemus), cricket frogs (Acris gryllus) and the Sanibel Island rice rat (Oryzomys palustris sanibeli) thrived in these vast grasslands.

“Both raptors and wading birds had countless open sunlit wetlands throughout the island during the rainy season to forage in before an overabundance of closed canopy forests concealing these habitats,” said Lechowicz.

Historically, when the interior island was mostly salt-tolerant grasses, storm surge recovery happened relatively quickly, and there were not as many trees to succumb to saltwater due to natural processes such as fire and periodic surge events.

Landowners on the islands, such as SCCF, are still dealing with the effects of these storms.

“Many SCCF lands are very low and hard to traverse until it’s very dry,” said Lechowicz. “The removal of dead vegetation takes heavy machinery in areas that is very costly and timely. We ask for your patience during this arduous task.”

Through contributions to a major re-greening effort, SCCF is accelerating vegetation removal and implementing land management practices to give nature a boost to flourish and re-grow faster.

Please click here to donate online or contact SCCF Development Director Cheryl Giattini, cgiattini@sccf.org, or 239-822-6121 to discuss funding opportunities.