HISTORY OF CAPE CORAL

Cape Coral is a waterfront community in Southwest Florida. Between 1958 and 1965, developers dug 500 miles of canals. They dumped the sand and coral removed onto either side of the canals and graded it. The entire City was then pre-platted into thousands of buildable lots.

The soft soil and graded parcels provided a habitat that attracted the Florida burrowing owl and gopher tortoise. Both dig their homes in the ground and live in underground tunnels.  Rampant human development drove the burrowing owls from their original habitat in the open, native prairies of South Central Florida. Habitat loss is the main threat to the gopher tortoise.