business for the next several years. think you. >> a wonderful discussion. [applause] i should observe we have a handful of bullock's-heart -- a box here and i think the professor will sign those. thank you for coming. >> thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] >> the reason i wrote the book that they get to love them the first sections cover them the mammals and the reptiles including the snakes and lizards and creepy-crawlies and though holdback section where you can't go in southwest florida sarasota, hendry county to find them. it is like a cheat sheet for nature today we will see the national wild life refuge and other islands we did not visit in to the state park that is far less known and obviously has abundant wildlife alligators, birds and it is the great place to visit in fort myers. we're standing now at the national wildlife refuge and they have identified 238 species and also reptiles and amphibians and a number of mammals that comes through here as well. >> in terms of the island this preserve started the san about wildlife preserve and overtime after darling past the way they did in his honor. he was a cartoonist from des moines i well winning several pulitzer prizes and was very much in to nature and was of follow-through with teddy roosevelt and conservatives being conservative meant being for the conservation of nature and those two words were intertwined so he was into her serving this into perpetuity to 200500 acres of these tidal flats that are right to be kind to me when the tide gets low all the birds come to feed to get to the crustaceans and the crabs. and the love minnows are pooled but if you come up when the tide is high there are no birds to be seen as the lawyers have to to come when the tide is low. it attracts over 800,000 visitors per year and the second most a visited wildlife preserve in the united states. the american white pelican spend the winter down here and this summer in northern minnesota and montana like brown pelicans but feed with their beaks and push some of the nose ahead of them and to scoop them up you can see them sitting all watch but is rare to see them the feed also eats little crustaceans. we stand on the of vanity overlook all the places we chose sarasota, charlotte sarasota, charlotte, glaves and hendry what i would do is contact the convention visitors bureau what would they cover? as an alternative i contacted the other organizations what would you cover? the list was never the same although we have to hit the beach in southwest florida there is no development so just the beach and the bush and the trees only seconds to san miguel island for shelley then hopefully we will see alligators on one of the trails with an alligator pont -- pont. we're still of lovers keep that the alligator ponds and i should be paying attention or seven alligators. one rather large bomb is in the quarter and six little babies ranging in size between 2 feet and 3 feet. this is the only accessible freshwater pond on the island there is about 2 million alligators in florida right now. they were endangered but no longer they do a great recovery as we can see. one thing you have to take into consideration please never feed them. don't feed them anything. nothing. what happens is they equate people with food and that is how the alligator attacks that are fatal because people feed them. here we will go to the beach it is as beautiful as you can get. i iman the edge of this state park 1700 acres it is several miles long. managed by the state park system so it is not affiliated with the national park or wildlife refuge. but it is different from almost any other body of water if you go off long island to new york it is deep almost instantly bet on the gulf of mexico 100 feet of water you have to go 40 miles it is so shallow. that is where all the shells:act. we have thousands of species and when the storm stirred up like this weekend the storm -- the shell breaks free and the animal dies then you will find all kinds of varieties of shells. the reason i included lovers he is because it offers a multitude of recreational opportunities. to the beach is the given and it is gorgeous with the paddle boats trails and boating access and hiking trails. whenever nature appeals to you, you can find it here on lovers key and hopefully it will teach about southwest florida and want them to conserve it. . .