A boardwalk overlook into the red mangroves — the walking, salt-drinking trees on their tangled prop roots that build and hold this whole coast and nurse half the life in the Gulf.
Coming up is a short boardwalk out into the mangroves, and it's worth the stop, because these strange, tangled trees are the engine of this entire place. Mangroves are the rare trees that can live with their feet in salt water — a thing almost no plant can do — and they build coastline where there was none. Look at the ones right at the water's edge, standing up on those arching, spidery roots like a tree walking out into the sea; those are red mangroves, and folks call them the walking trees. Farther up the bank grow the black mangroves, which breathe through hundreds of little snorkels poking up out of the mud, and higher still the white mangroves, which actually sweat the salt out through their leaves.
And here's why they matter so much: this tangle of roots is a nursery. The vast majority of the fish and shrimp and crabs in the whole Gulf of Mexico spend their babyhood hiding and growing in the safe, sheltered water among these mangrove roots before they head out to sea. No mangroves, no fish — it's that simple. This refuge protects part of the largest undeveloped mangrove wilderness left in the entire United States. It doesn't look like much at a glance — just scrubby green trees in the mud — but you're looking at one of the most productive, most important habitats on earth. Breathe in that rich, salty, sulfury smell; that's the smell of a living estuary. Roll on.
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters · Public domain
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