The largest conservation land area in Florida is called “Bombing Range Ridge.”. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that name they have given. It is really is a bombing range, designated as one of our main ones since we stopped bombing Vieques, Puerto Rico. Instead we are dropping 500 to 2000 pound bombs in Avon Park, Florida, and using live ammo to boot.
A short distance away, seven Florida scrub-jays hop along the ground looking for acorns before returning to the stunted scrub oaks containing their nests.
The area is called the Bombing Range Ridge and Flatwoods Project, an area covering 44,000 acres that stretches from the Avon Park Air Force Range to Lake Kissimmee State Park along the eastern edge of Polk County.
“This is one of Central Florida’s last unfragmented landscapes,” said Keith Fountain, The Nature Conservancy’s director of protection. TNC is a private conservation organization that purchases and manages environmentally sensitive land.
The article goes on to point out that many of Florida’s reserves now are privately held. I did not know that.
It really is called Bombing Range Ridge.
I guess it’s me but I find it odd that they would have the nerve to call a bombing range where they use live ammo and drop 500 to 2000 pound bombs a nature reserve, a conservation area. But then this is Florida.
Moving bombing from Vieques to Avon Park, Florida
About 930 inmates and dwindling endangered birds living in and near the Avon Park Air Force Range in Highlands and Polk counties could experience Florida’s version of shock and awe under a Navy plan to bomb with new vigor and high explosives. The Navy plans to more than triple its bombing missions at the range and begin dropping live 500- to 2,000-pound bombs in addition to dummy bombs, which have been the main air-to- ground ordinance dropped there since World War II.
Navy spokesmen said high explosives may have been used in bombing runs there for a short period in the 1970s, but no one was certain. Ground troops train at the range with mortars and artillery, such as howitzers. But the plan would dramatically increase use of explosives at the base, which straddles the county line on the eastern edges of Highlands and Polk.
No one is certain? You mean you don’t know whether it was used for bombing runs in the 70s? You did not keep records?
Aside from calling a bombing range an area of conservation…which is just plain stupid…a local congressman is salivating at the prospect and scorns any effect on the wildlife.
As for endangered wildlife on and around the range, Putnam and the Navy say the fauna have gotten used to noise by now.
“The scrub jays know how to duck and cover,” Putnam said.
Congressman Adam Putnam, Florida, District 12, says to just let the scrub jays duck and cover.
