Monkeys!

Once again...just a brief post today.

Since we're headed to Florida on our first big vacation in 2015 I was looking at some photos from our trip there in 2013. We always hit the big first magnitude springs and the waterways that form from those sources of fresh water. One of the best ones is Silver Spring and the Silver River that flows out of it.

Along the protected shores of that river are populations of rhesus monkeys, ancestors of monkeys that were released to add an essence of the exotic to the area where a promoter operated river trips. The monkeys thrived and number (apparently) in the hundreds today. If you're lucky, you will see some of them as you canoe or kayak or boat down the swift current of the Silver River.

A typical view along the crystal clear water of the Silver River.

An adult who seemed to be watching over a female who had a brand new infant--a baby so tiny that it would fit in your hand. I tried to get a photo of the new mother with her child but couldn't get a good angle.

These youngsters were fun to watch.

Another one of the kids.

Just sittin' and checkin' things out.

Life on the otherwise idyllic river is not all safety. This fellow was lying in wait amidst the cover just below where the monkeys were going about their routine.

On the Silver River

I had thought that most of the rivers and spring runs produced by the very large freshwater springs in Florida were immune to drought. But they are also influenced by periods of low rainfall. We witnessed this one our trip, most dramatically on the Silver River which appears full cloth from the mouth of the tremendous Silver Springs.

We found that the level of the river was down by about two feet from our last visit here. But the spring is so vibrant and produces such a tremendous volume of water that the current remains very powerful and the river very deep. It was still chock-a-block with wildlife and even at low ebb is still an impressive waterway.

I was happy to see that the feral monkeys are still thriving along the wild state park property. These rhesus monkeys are here because of various escapes from old movie sets and a monkey habitat that was once part of a private park somewhere along the river. Various enterprising monkeys took off on their own, and a large number--from what I've read--got loose after a hurricane destroyed their enclosure. Thus, the area is now home to several hundred feral monkeys. I've been told that the State of Florida has done studies on the impact of this invasive species on the local environment and found them largely harmless inhabitants and have chosen to leave them alone. I like that.

Like most of the other major springs in Florida, Silver Springs was destined to end up in the hands of the public, which is as it should be. It always bothered me that so many of these great places had been locked up in private property. But the old parks that had been built around these magnificent springs began to decline in attendance when Disney sucked all the air out of the room. Silver Springs was one of the last to give in to the fading audience of idiot tourists but is, at last, being transferred to state ownership.

We almost immediately noticed that the Silver River was running lower than normal.

Strange to see so much root system exposed.

As you can see here, the water was at least two feet below normal.

We saw a large group of feral rhesus monkeys. The young one at the bottom had just caught and eaten some kind of bug, so the other one was interested as they searched for more bits of mobile protein to ingest.

This guy was on the bank, same side as the monkey group, about forty or fifty feet down from them.

Even in low water the Silver River is an impressive spring run.

Some extra color.

More color.

I'm not exactly sure what these are, but I think they may be snail eggs.

The exposed root system and series of cypress knees looked like a picket fence arranged to protect the tree from the flow of the river.

Silver River

As I'm house-bound for at least a couple of more days, my mind wanders back to some of the fun trips I've taken with Carole and Andy.

One of the over-all best vacations we had was one of our first trips to explore and canoe and snorkel the first magnitude springs of Florida. A great number of these springs are located in the Ocala National Forest in the north-central part of the state. We had reserved a National Forest campsite at Juniper Springs Recreation Area, and this proved to be one of the single finest choices we've ever made for a campground. I don't recall the campsite number we had, but it was a spacious and secluded spot located pretty much between two great springs: Juniper and Hammock.

One of our first side trips was to canoe the Silver River. This river emerges, in full, at the aptly named Silver Springs. Best known as the tourist trap and amusement park, you can bypass the high admission to that place by putting your canoe or kayak into one of many access spots along the river and paddling upstream to the main springs which are, currently, privately owned. However, since the early 1970s, the state of Florida has been slowly buying up all of these privately owned springs and incorporating them into the National Forests or into the State Park system. I suspect this will eventually happen to Silver Spring. One can hope.

One amazing thing about the Silver River is that not only does it emerge whole cloth from the namesake springs, but that the volume of the springs are phenomenal. We are not talking about a small tributary here, but a very deep, wide, and powerfully flowing river. The clarity of the water is stunning, and the current in the stream is impressive. To see all of this clear, fresh water exploding from the earth in such a way is truly something to experience.

Another of the tidbits of information that we'd gleaned about the Silver River is that there is a viable population of rhesus monkeys living along the riverbanks. They are, of course, an "invasive" species. Apparently they're what resulted from a single group of monkeys that had been brought in for backgrounds in the various movies that were once filmed there on the Silver River. Many Tarzan movies were lensed there, as well as things like the TV series SEA HUNT and the feature film CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. (In fact, some of the sets for SEA HUNT are still intact.)

Apparently the monkeys escaped during one of the hurricanes that plague Florida and they were able to establish themselves as a wild population, numbering these days in the hundreds. The State of Florida did studies on the impact of the monkeys and concluded that they have done no harm to the local environment and are unlikely to negatively impact the ecosystem of the river. So, if you're lucky, you may see one or more of them as you cruise along the Silver River.

This here is the main spring basin inside the private Silver Springs Park. You have to pay something like two sawbucks to get into this place. Better to just take your canoe and put in downriver and paddle up. Of course you can't get out there, but they can't stop you from paddling over the main spring and looking down into all of that amazing clear water at the giant limestone cavern from which the water bursts in an unending blast.

I actually paused here in midstream to take a shot of a beached alligator (you can make him out between the leaf litter and the green above it). But what's truly amazing about this shot is that it shows the turquoise clarity of the water speeding down the river basin. Very deep and very clear and stunningly beautiful.

A cormorant perched on a sunken log along the Silver River.

Every time we go to Florida we see jillions of alligators. I can recall that in my youth they were in danger of extinction from overhunting. Now there are millions of them. These days, protected, they often have a menacing aura about them. As if they've lost their fear of Man, and we may now be just something else warm to eat on a good day. This guy had that look about him. He wasn't really big enough to eat us, but maybe he didn't know that.

And here they were. We finally saw them as we paddled back downriver. A troop of rhesus monkeys were sitting in this sabal palm eating something. I don't know what they were eating, but they seemed very content and paid us no mind at all.

Another kind of invasive monkey species. This was taken at a put-in point inside the Silver River State Park. We had stopped there for lunch. I've been thinking of putting together an album for my wife called "Can't Take Me Anyplace".