Capt. Rodney Smith: The sun hadn’t appeared, yet, but young Dean and I were nearing our destination, Canaveral National Seashore’s Playalinda Beach. Even though the trip had been planned for a while, Dean still wanted to know why we had to get up so darn early! Our day together had started as a promise I’d made to Dean back when he was helping out the AFC in preparing nearly 1500 rods and reels for this past year’s Fish Earth Day Hook Kids on Fishing programs. Even though I am 40 years his senior, I was as excited as Dean about our fishing trip!
To reach Playalinda, we’d first need to negotiate a long, flat two-lane country road through a vast wilderness, aka the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (MINWR). As the sun’s light began to appear, the morning’s cobalt sky became awash in wispy clouds of lightly painted orange, red and pink. A delicate misty fog hung over the pristine collage of hardwood hammocks, saltwater marshes and open grasslands.
Along the way I explained to Dean how there was a growing group of people wanting to develop a portion of the MINWR called Shiloh. Dean asked if the Shiloh area looked anything like this, and I answered, “Yes.” He instinctively replied, “Why?”, and I explained that ignorance was the primary factor.
The Shiloh portion of the MINWR borders the northwest end of the Refuge and the Indian River Lagoon, and is only a stone’s throw west of the Mosquito Lagoon. The area encompasses red, white and black mangrove shorelines, hardwood hammocks, open wetlands and grasslands. The Central Florida Bird Watchers website states that, ‘The Shiloh area is about as close to natural Coastal Florida as you can get.’
Dean and I landed with surf fishing tackle in hand on Playalinda, minutes before the earth rolled into its familiar position, and from the beach we watched as the sun appeared once again. We enjoyed a fine morning’s fishing with AFC friends Captain John Kumiski and Tom Raftican, but in the back of my mind I couldn’t help but think, “Are all of these protected lands in jeopardy? Will humans plow over the last park, refuge, or sanctuary, a little piece at a time, in the name of progress?”
It is time for our voices to be heard. We need to establish well informed and educated opinions on the importance of protecting legacy lands like these from a death of a thousand cuts, and let the people charged with protecting these areas know that we are watching.