Conservation on a Working Ranch : Adams Ranch

FNPS Conference Field Trip Highlight: Adams Ranch
Day: Thursday, May 18 at 9 am.
Leaders: Anne Cox and Lee Ann Simmons

Rainbow over Adams Ranch,  Bud Adams/Photographer

Adams Ranch is a working cattle ranch with a long history of conservation. It is the model of a successful ranch that is also protecting and preserving environmentally sensitive lands. The ranch helps to preserve the rivers, swamps, marshes, prairies and wooded areas that are on its land, and in doing so protects critical habitat for native wildlife, such as bald eagles, alligators, bobcats, turkey, hawks, owls, Caracara and so much more.

Caracara, Donna Bollenbach/Photographer
This family owned business, established in 1937 by Alto Adams Sr, and his son Alto “Bud” Adams, Jr., is committed to preserving the natural vegetation, wildlife and its Florida heritage through environmental stewardship and a program of total ranch management. The ranch has won numerous conservation awards including awards from the Florida Audubon Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

In a Tampa Bay Times article in 2015 by Michael Kruse, Florida rancher's wish: a legacy of his land pristine forever,  paraphrases Bud Adams:"What Adams wants, here near the end, coming up on 89 years old, is for the ranch land that bears his name, some 40,000 acres spread over four Florida counties, to remain the way it is — for his children, for their children, for the children's children." 

Come on this field trip to learn how a major agricultural operation can maintain valuable native habitats while running a quality cow/calf operation.  Ranches are a major component of natural connectivity in Florida, and this is a success story in merging ranching and environmental sustainability.

Adams Ranch, Bud Adams/Photographer

Your leaders are Dr. Anne Cox and FNPS past president.  LeeAnn Simmons is a 4th generation rancher and part of the Adams family.

To visit Adams Ranch, just choose Field Trip K when you register for the 2017 Florida Native Plant Society Conference. 

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