Where Will They Go, and Anyone Care?: A Florida Wildlife Investigation

Florida is growing. Wildlife is running out of places to go.Over twenty-five years, Florida added more than 7.4 million residents. Homes, roads, utilities, shopping centers, and entire communities followed. The human benefits are real. So are the consequences: fragmented habitat, altered water, road mortality, relocated animals, damaged fisheries, and species pushed closer to the edge.Where Will They Go, and Will Anyone Care? follows the evidence across land, roads, wetlands, coasts, wildlife policy, public spending, and the decisions that determine which pieces of Florida remain livable for animals. It examines the Florida panther, black bears, Key deer, gopher tortoises, scrub-jays, manatees, and other species trying to survive inside a landscape changing around them.This is not an argument against people, housing, or growth. It is an argument against pretending that every place can be built, drained, widened, or divided without a price. Clear-eyed, deeply researched, and written with heart and justified anger, the book separates documented evidence from estimates, projections, and opinion-and asks the question Florida can no longer avoid: How much room are we willing to leave for the wildlife that was here first?