All too often, Charles Lee's travels across Florida are grim reminders of how far man still must go to protect nature's rarest birds of prey.
Tuesday was not one of those days.
Lee and other members of the Florida Audubon Society traveled to Port St. Lucie to praise The Ginn Co. for forgoing $28 million in development to preserve two bald eagles' nests at the posh Tesoro neighborhood north of Becker Road.
Although Ginn designed its 1,400-acre golf-course community around a single eagle's nest, the bird was chased from its treetop home by a great horned owl last winter, eventually settling on a tree nearby overlooking the planned golf course. Ginn executives stopped all construction work and drew a 35-acre sphere of protection around the new nest, resulting in up to $28 million in forgone lot sales and design and engineering costs.
Lee, director of advocacy for Florida Audubon Society, heard about the protection plan and brought three fellow employees with him to Tesoro Tuesday to thank Ginn President Bobby Ginn and challenge other developers to behave as responsibly when they confront protected species as they prepare to bulldoze forests.
"We're often sparring with developers who want to avoid doing the right thing, and clearly we have here in The Ginn Co. an exemplary activity where they not only protect one nest site, but two," Lee said. "Even though there are severe penalties for disturbing a bald eagle's nest, the ability of regulators in remote areas of Florida to enforce that is always a challenge."
Faced with the loss of some golf holes, driving range, pool and homes that fell within the primary protection zone of the second nest, Ginn executives shifted those uses to former preserve land and offered to preserve nearby land through a complex swap with the city. The city offered to trade 92 acres it owns near Tesoro for 15 acres Ginn owns inside Wilderness Park, giving Ginn credit for preserving the 92 acres.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still is studying Ginn's latest upland preservation plan, but Bobby Ginn said he expects final permits within a month.
Source: Palm Beach Post (Florida)
