Shark Valley is part of Everglades National Park, located along Tamiami Trail (US 41) near the Miami Dade-Collier County line. The park features a Visitor Center which offers educational displays, a park video, an underwater camera and informational brochures. The National Park Service website features both English and Spanish language videos to help you plan your visit to Shark Valley.
Wildlife seen in Shark Valley include alligators, ibis, wood storks, spoonbills, raccoons, deer, lizards, snakes and herons.
Recreation includes the observation tower, seven miles down the trail. Designed by Edward M. Ghezzi in 1965 and opened to the public the following year, it is the midpoint in the trail used by trams, bikers, and hikers. Also along the paved trail several nature trails are present. These nature trails connect the paved trails. Also at the end of the paved 15 mile trail, right near the parking lot there is a dock with the view of alligators and other Everglades wildlife available.
Famous quotes containing the words shark and/or valley:
“They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I will frankly declare, that after passing a few weeks in this valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But alas! since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of-war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)