Gum Slough is yet again another one of a kind in Big Cypress Nat’l Preserve.
It’s unusually narrow. You could literally throw a rock across it in most places. (That’s assuming you could find a rock!) Most sloughs are endless as far as the eye can see.
Even more perplexingly, it runs in a due east-west direction. Most flow systems in the preserve – whether they be forested strands or marshy sloughs – have a north-south component to them.
But most shockingly (although not altogether surprising this year), Gum Slough has gone almost completely dry.
Or, at least, as dry as we’ve seen it!
Above is a short video clip of a cypress enclosed marsh in Gum Slough where we monitor its water levels, filmed just last week.
