WEST PALM BEACH – Zoo Miami will partner with the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) on a captive breeding program for the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow.

At the July 10 meeting of the SFWMD Governing Board, SFWMD Executive Director Drew Bartlett said that in December 2025, SFWMD started looking for options for a captive breeding program for these endangered birds.

“Unfortunately, this year, when they did the sparrow survey this year, there was a decline in the number of sparrows that they counted so this is becoming increasingly important,” Bartlett explained.

“We did find a partner and that is Zoo Miami,” he said. Zoo Miami is South Florida and already has a captive breeding program for other animals. This is another species they have agreed to take on.

Newton Cook of United Waterfowlers said restoration requires the water “flow south from the lake to Florida Bay without any restrictions – high water during storms, naturally, drought during droughts, naturally.” Blocking the flow to protect the nesting grounds for a single bird species has hurt the rest of the ecosystem, he explained.

Caitlin Newcamp of Audubon Florida said the breeding program “is a very important and positive step toward safeguarding the critically imperiled species which continues to face major habitat and hydrologic challenges in the wild, evidenced by steep decline in population numbers.

She said Audubon reminds everyone that captive breeding should not be seen as a replacement for ecosystem restoration, yet it can serve as a last-resort strategy to save the species “while we continue to address the root causes of the decline.”

For years, freshwater flow to Florida Bay has been blocked nine months of the year to protect the nesting grounds of a subpopulation of the sparrows.

For more than 20 years, these birds have been a source of debate regarding Everglades restoration. The focus of the debate, sparrow subpopulation A nesting grounds, are south of the Tamiami Trail, a man-made dike that intersects the natural Everglades.  

The Tamiami Trail was opened in 1928. Before the road was built, water sheet flowed across the landscape in a swath more than 25 miles wide. In the early years of automobile transportation, when wet season water levels were high, the road was closed and water flowed over it. Over the years, to accommodate heavier vehicles and heavier traffic between Tampa and Miami, the roadbed was built up, and water levels controlled to protect the road. Instead of a broad sheet flow, water movement was restricted to ditches with some access under the trail via culverts and water control structures. The interruption of the natural flow caused the land on the south side of the trail to dry out.

The sparrows were first documented in 1918 at Cape Sable, hence their name. Their original habitat was lost to hurricanes and development, but after the roadwork changed water flow in the Everglades, the birds were documented nesting there.

The Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, released Dec. 16, 2016 explained the Everglades restoration goals sometimes conflict with the habitat requirements for endangered species.

“Restoration activities that produce net benefits for a species at the system scale can often create negative local impacts on that species,” the report states.

According to the National Park Service (NPS) web site, the sparrows nest in dense, clumped grasses. The sparrows tend to avoid tall, dense, sawgrass-dominated communities, spike-rush marshes, extensive areas of cattails, wetlands with tall, dense vegetation, and areas of woody vegetation.

The sparrows build cup-shaped nests about six inches off the ground, making their nests vulnerable to floodwaters.

Researchers now believe areas that are now marl prairies south of the Tamiami Trail originally had muck soil on top of the marl, but that due to dry conditions, the muck oxidized.  Thus an actual “restoration” would destroy parts of the sparrows’ current habitat.

Sometimes birds who are pushed out their habitat can shift to new territory.  Migratory sandhill cranes that lost their winter habitat in Mexico established new nesting areas in South Florida.

But Cape Sable Seaside Sparrows only live about 4 years and according to the National Park Service they do not regularly disperse over large distances. It’s doubtful they could find other nesting sites. Losing their habitat in the Everglades could mean extinction.

Florida Department of Transportation work to raise portions of the Tamiami Trail is expected to be complete in 2026 would give water managers the capacity to move even more water under the Trail to Florida Bay.

The captive breeding program was proposed to save the endangered birds and move them away from areas that will be too wet for them when Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) projects are complete. According to information shared at SFWMD meetings, the birds have not been seen in the subpopulation A area in years. According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, four adult birds were observed in 2019 and 2020, but no sparrows were observed there in 2021 or since.