Day two of Expedition: Kissimmee River begins on Makinson Island as the team starts its journey down Lake Toho, one of the best bass-fishing areas in the state because of the managed water levels.
“A very shallow lake though,” Bob Mindick said. “So a day like today, where it’s a little windy, you can get some white caps on there. It makes it a little challenging and fun.”
Those shallow waters also make it easy to spot invasive plants and animal species. For example, hydrilla, a water plant that came over from Asia in the 1950s via the aquarium trade. Someone threw it into a canal, and now the state of Florida spends $25 million a year just trying to contain it. If allowed to spread unchecked, it could cover an entire lake.
“They cause problems and they’re out-competing the native vegetation, which is the things that the animals have adapted to,” Mindick said. “So it reduces some of your, what we call, biodiversity, the number of different types of animals.”
More examples of invasive species are soda apple plants, which came from South America as seeds in cow dung, and channel snails.
“We have a little turf-war going on between the apple snails and the channel snails,” Mendick said.
Apple snails are the almost exclusive food of two rare birds: the limpkin and the snail kite.
“We’re just hoping, especially for two of these very rare birds that are found here, that it’s not a devastating result,” Mendick said.
At the end of day two, the team set up camp at Southport Park at the Southern End of Lake Toho. Day three it will kayak nine miles to Cypress Lake.