Telogia Creek: Creating a Critical Connection in North Florida (Excerpt from The Nature Conservancy)
TNC strengthens linkages between the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve, Torreya State Park and other lands in the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has protected more than 2,200 acres at Telogia Creek in Liberty County, adding to a 22,000-acre wildlife corridor in North Florida. The acquisition strengthens linkages between TNC’s Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve (ABRP), Torreya State Park, Telogia Creek Wildlife Management Area and Apalachicola National Forest to create a more connected landscape for wildlife.
The protection of the Telogia Creek property expands the acreage of permanently conserved lands within the Florida Wildlife Corridor—a biodiversity hotspot. The newly protected property is particularly significant for the federally threatened eastern indigo snake, North America’s longest native snake and one of the Southeast’s most iconic species.
Read the full article here: https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/telogia-creek-florida/#:~:text=The%20Nature%20Conservancy%20(TNC)%20has,wildlife%20corridor%20in%20North%20Florida.
An Endangered Mussel Bounces Back in the Apalachicola River (Excerpt), WFSU Ecology Blub
After the divers suit up, they each grab a mesh bag. I tell them that they look like they’re going scalloping and Dr. Nathan Johnson says that, actually, he had done just that over the weekend. Recreational and professional lives align. Scallops in Crystal River over the weekend, freshwater mussels in the Apalachicola River today.
Nathan is a mussel biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He’s joining a team from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and student divers from the Florida State University Panama City Campus scientific diving program. That’s three boats’ worth of dive teams tasked with surveying dozens of locations up and down the Apalachicola. Today, they will focus on an area around Wewahitchka, the middle stretch of the river.
The Apalachicola basin is home to almost 30 species of freshwater mussels. Six are federally listed as endangered or threatened, while a handful have gone extinct or have been extirpated from the river in recent decades. Mussels face many of the same challenges as oysters and Ogeechee tupelo trees, the species we most often talk about in relation to drought, dredging, and dams on this river.
Unlike those species, freshwater mussels spend their lives away from human eyes, and off of human plates. With the help of these divers, we’ll meet a few species, and learn of their lives at the bottom of the Apalachicola River. And also, surprisingly (to me, anyway), their lives moving around this river system.
Like other stories we tell about the Apalachicola River basin, this is a story about those aforementioned challenges. But it is also a story with some good news. One of these mussels might be leaving the Endangered Species list.
Read the full article here: https://blog.wfsu.org/blog-coastal-health/2026/09/an-endangered-mussel-bounces-back-in-the-apalachicola-river/?utm_source=newsstoryaside