The Little Pine Island Wetland Restoration & Mitigation Bank on Little Pine Island is just minutes from Cape Coral. You can tour the preserve where wetland restoration is ongoing and herons, ibises, ospreys and spoonbills have returned.  From Pine Island you can take guided kayak tours of Pine Island Sound, home to many species of birds.

The Audubon Society’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and the Six Mile Cypress Slough (that’s “sloo” to you) have boardwalks through the partially submerged landscape. Both preserves are home to rare native plants, like the bald cypress, numerous species of exotic birds and wildlife. Alligators can often be seen form the boardwalks.  The beauty of the natural surroundings gives these remarkable wetlands an ethereal almost garden-like appeal.

Alligators, and the more uncommon crocodiles, can occasionally be found in almost any waterway.  These crocodilians can be up to 15 feet long and weigh 800 pounds.  They are true living fossils, very similar to their ancestors who appeared 84 million years ago.  Incredibly, they are closely related to modern birds.  The best places to see them in the wild are J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island and at the Babcock Ranch recently purchased by the State.

The endangered West Indian manatee, sometimes called the sea cow, a huge aquatic mammal native to Florida’s coastal waters, up to 13 feet long, weighing as much as 3500 pounds, can often be seen at the Lee County Manatee Park in Ft. Myers during the winter months.  The manatees gather there to enjoy the uncontaminated heated water from the Florida Power and Light electric plant’s cooling system, just as they do in natural hot springs, a rare example of an industry benefiting an endangered species.  Kayaks are available for a paddle along the scenic Orange River.

Shelling has always been a popular Florida pastime, ever since tha Calusas made mollusks a mainstay of their diet.  Remember that collecting live shells is forbidden by law. The Shell Factory in North Ft. Myers, just outside of Cape Coral, has thousands of specimens on display and for sale. Its 18 acre complex includes a nature park, a petting zoo, shops and restaurant.  The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, a specialized natural history museum with a collection of over 150,000 shells is located on Sanibel Island.  Part of the collection is on display in 26 thematic exhibits.

The everglades, a unique environment of endless sawgrass growing in the flat wetlands can be seen from "Alligator Alley", a highway that runs in a straight line through an uninhabited area from Naples to Miami.  Tours of Everglades National Park by airboat, kayak, and cruises through the Ten Thousand Islands depart from Everglades City, south of Naples.