Protecting the Panhandle's Wild Heritage
The Panhandle Fund
The Florida panhandle is worth protecting.
Wild Green Future's Panhandle Fund helps by working to increase public access to conserved lands, to give conservation groups in the region the tools and support they need, and to assist efforts to strengthen wildlife populations.
This is our newest project. Read on to learn more about Wild Green Future's approach to supporting conservation in Florida's panhandle, and scroll down to find pictures and fun facts about the region's wildlife and wild places.
Picture credit Chris Hartmann.
Do you happen to have a picture of the snail Dasyscias franzi?
Pillar 1: Access
Conservation of a place begins with the people who live there.
There are many protected lands and waters across the panhandle, but access to these areas can sometimes be limited. Wild Green Future's Panhandle Fund is working to help increase public access and to build an outdoor culture in the region.
Our first foray in this category is through a grant given to the Bay County Conservancy to help facilitate trail maintenance and improved signage on their Juniper Headwaters and King Family preserves.
Picture credit Court Harding.
Pillar 2: Tools and Support
Giving organizations the tools they need to succeed.
In our experience as conservation professionals and in working with partners around the world, we have found that there is often a mismatch between what is easy to fundraise for and what an organization actually needs. A group may find it easy to fundraise to plant trees, for example, when their major limitation to greater impact is actually office space, or staffing, a vehicle, or other less "charismatic" infrastructure.
This imbalance provides Wild Green Future with an incredible opportunity for greater impact by supporting the necessary tools to help organizations grow.
You can see this aspect of our strategy included in most of Wild Green Future's partnerships, and we are continuing it in our approach to work in the panhandle. Our first Tools and Support grant in the panhandle is to the WWALS Watershed Coalition. We have funded the purchase of two outboard motors, enabling the use vessels which WWALS already owned that were in good condition but lacked a means of propulsion, a trolling motor for auxiliary propulsion, and a chainsaw, all in support of their access and conservation work within the rivers of north Florida and southern Georgia.
Video credit Rhett Barker.
Pillar Three: Wildlife Conservation
Florida's panhandle has more kinds of wildlife than almost anywhere else in North America.
Florida's panhandle is famous for its wildlife and wild places. The creatures and habitats featured on this page are a testament to that incredible wealth of species and wildlife populations. We hope to help steward that abundance through the Panhandle Fund, now and in the future.
Our support for the Florida Museum of Natural History's frosted elfin captive breeding program is our first panhandle project in service of this pillar. A rare and declining species, the frosted elfin is a small brown butterfly which has seen seven of its ten populations in Florida disappear since just 2017.
Due to the frosted elfin's decline and difficulty dispersing between potential habitats, a strong captive breeding program is needed. The Daniels Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity has over 30 years' experience in captive breeding of at-risk taxa, including the Miami Blue Butterfly and Schaus's Swallowtail. In 2024, Wild Green Future provided funding for them to augment their captive colony of frosted elfin butterflies with new individuals and diverse DNA from several panhandle populations, as well as to create a comprehensive set of husbandry and breeding best practices for conservationists across the butterfly's range. The project was a success, with many new butterflies of robust genetic stock bred and a best practices manual created which will provide crucial information for the butterfly's conservation in Florida and throughout their wider range.
Picture credit Geena Hill.
Panhandle Wildlife Showcase
The pictures and fact files below correspond to the Wild Green Minute public radio segment. Explore to learn more about the amazing wildlife and wild places of the Florida panhandle!