Natural History
The Indian River Lagoon is North America’s most diverse estuary with more than 2,200 different species of animals and 2,100 species of plants. The Lagoon varies in width from .5 to 5 miles (0.80 to 8.0 km) and averages 3 feet (0.91 m) in depth. It serves as a spawning and nursery ground for many different species of oceanic and lagoon fish and shellfish. The lagoon also has one of the most diverse bird populations anywhere in America. Nearly 1/3 of the nation’s manatee population lives here or migrates through the Lagoon seasonally. In addition, its ocean beaches provide one of the densest sea turtle nesting areas found in the Western Hemisphere.
Red Drum, Spotted seatrout, Common snook, and the Tarpon are the main gamefish sought by anglers in the lagoon system.
Read more about this topic: Indian River Lagoon
Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or history:
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (17431794)
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (18411929)