Rainbow Springs

The video shows clear spring water, underwater vegetation, and wildlife including fish and turtles. Scenes of recreational use such as kayaking, tubing, and boating are shown, along with examples of disturbed vegetation and floating plant mats downstream.

[On-screen text:] Vegetation and the Rainbow Springs Aquatic Community

Narrator (male):

The springs of Florida include some of the clearest water on Earth. Rainbow Springs Aquatic Preserve includes a diverse natural community of submerged and emergent vegetation, fish, turtles, alligators, snails, birds, and invertebrates that create a balanced ecosystem along the river’s 5.7-mile length.

The outstanding water clarity at the headwaters, and along the length of the river, allows many varieties of submerged vegetation to flourish, creating an aquatic garden along the river bottom.

Turtles feed on the lush productivity of this aquatic food web. Fish are sheltered from predators in the emergent vegetation, and snails find platform for growth while eating algae and clinging to the plant leaves. The Submerged aquatic vegetation provides a zone where small organisms such as crayfish and worms, and the lowest levels of the food chain can develop and supports the populations of larger fish, otters, and birds.

Kayaks, canoes, pontoon boats, divers, people floating down the river on inflated tubes, all share recreational use of the river. These crowds of different user groups have caused congestion during peak times and has begun to stress the natural resources of the river.

People get out of their boats, tubes, or canoes to stand, play or swim  in the water, injuring the vegetation and shaking it loose. Scuba training classes stand in the vegetation in shallow water, or grab the river bottom to help navigate around the strong currents. Divers often fill the main channel forcing boats, bringing more divers upstream, to divert into the shallow edges of the river where the propellers often carve through the submerges vegetation leaving crop scars. At first one observes one observes a single floating plant and then section of the missing submerged vegetation. Mats of dead vegetation get large as one travels down river from moderate to large to very large. At the end of the summer weekend, floating vegetation covers the whole width of the rainbow river at the convergence of the Withlacoochee River. 

Vegetation is the foundation that connects the aquatic community. The Apple snail needs reeds to lay eggs on. The Limpkin, a bird of special concern, found mainly in Florida, needs the apple snail as its main food source. More hens and wood ducks eat the emergent vegetation. Young ducks and nesting birds need vegetation cover for protection from predators. Egrets and herons frequent the vegetation edges hunting for food. 

[On-screen text:] What you Can Do To Help

1. Do not walk or stand in the aquatic vegetation with bare feet or flippers. 

2. Do not anchor in beds of vegetation.

3. Do not pull or remove vegetation while diving or swimming in the river.

4. Do not navigate a power boat through shallow river areas where vegetation would be impacted. 

5. Elevate your boat engine in shallow channels of the river to minimize contact with vegetation.

6. Enter and exit the river only at access points.

What you Can Do To Help. Do not walk or stand in the aquatic vegetation with bare feet or flippers. Do not anchor in beds of vegetation. Do not pull or remove vegetation while diving or swimming in the river. Do not navigate a power boat through shallow river areas where vegetation would be impacted. Elevate your boat engine in shallow channels of the river to minimize contact with vegetation. Enter and exit the river only at access points.

If every river visitor followed these rules the damage to the rainbow river vegetation would be dramatically reduced and every river visit would be more enjoyable. Preserving the vegetation of the rainbow springs aquatic preserves is essential if this first magnitude spring fed river is to remain a habitat for the wide variety of fish, turtlers, birds and other creatures that currently reside here. Preserving the vegetation is also important to ensure that people that visit the rainbow river have a positive visitor experience now and for generations to come. 

[On-screen text:] Photography Credits

Tracy Colson, Underwater Video

William Vibbert

Sandra Marraffino

J.P. Davis

Tom Alter

Paul Marraffino, Editor