complete agenda - Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Unit Name: Florida Caverns State Park
Acres: 1,279.25 Managing
Agency:
Description:
DRP
195
Current Management Plan
Approved:
The only state park in Florida to offer cave tours to the public. The cave has dazzling formations of
limestone stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, flowstones and draperies. The Chipola River and a
freshwater spring provide areas for swimming, fishing, canoeing and boating. The park also
features a nine-hole, New Deal-era golf course set in beautiful rolling terrain.
Accomplishments:
Resource Management
• Established new burn program.
• Designated a Park Services Specialist for Resource Management.
• Accomplished 95 percent of hardwood removal in management zone FCV-1 restoration.
• Developed interagency cooperation in activities such as burning, botany, archeology,
ornithology.
• Began new cave mapping project in Boyer’s Cave.
• Reclaimed/cleared four fish hatchery ponds.
• Test park for the new Invasive Exotic Plant Database.
• Established a Gopher Tortoise monitoring program.
Visitor Services
• Started a new special event for Halloween as a safe alternative to trick or treating “Spirits of
the Caverns.”
• Created a new cave tour video.
• Started an annual “Earth Day” event.
Capital Improvements
• Completed the restoration of the “Blue Hole Swimming Area.”
• Rehabilitated Fish Hatchery historic structures.
Other
• Eliminated the use of any batteries in conducting cave tours, eliminating a source of hazardous
waste produced by the park.
2006