Florida Swamp Rescued From Development Now Saves 275 Storks

When Jim Stevenson and Tara Tanaka looked at 45 acres of swampland outside Tallahassee in 2007, they didn't see wasteland. They saw a future worth saving.

The couple bought the entire property to protect it from developers. What happened next turned their backyard into one of Florida's most important conservation success stories.

By 2022, the land had become home to 275 nesting wood storks, a species that was listed as endangered in 1984 due to habitat loss. The swamp now shelters blue herons, great egrets, wood ducks, bobcats, otters, beavers, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, alligators, and hundreds of other animals.

Stevenson, a retired biologist, and Tanaka, a naturalist photographer, doubled down on their commitment in 2016. They secured a conservation easement through the Apalachee Land Conservancy, permanently protecting the land from development.

Their timing couldn't have been better. Wood storks were reclassified from endangered to threatened in 2014 as populations began recovering. This February, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service removed them from the federal endangered species list entirely.

The Ripple Effect

The storks' comeback tells a bigger story about what's possible when people act. Today, between 10,000 and 14,000 nesting pairs of wood storks live across 100 colony sites in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

The birds have adapted brilliantly, moving into coastal salt marshes, flooded rice fields, and even human-created wetlands. Every cypress tree on Stevenson and Tanaka's property holds two or three nests, each with two to three chicks on average.

The couple hasn't stopped at their own land. Tanaka documents threatened species through her photography, creating a visual record of wildlife that needs protection. Stevenson encourages young people to pursue careers in land conservation, fire management, and species protection.

"Any one of those professions would help to keep what we have," Stevenson told the Tallahassee Democrat in 2021.

One couple, one plot of swampland, and thousands of birds now thriving where parking lots might have stood.