Florida Weekly

April 15, 2021

The Florida Keys are an environmental marvel. This 120-mile-long archipelago of coral cays that stretches from Key Largo to Key West divides the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the west and even extends to the Marquesas and Dry Tortugas, uninhabited islands separated from the rest of the Florida Keys by the Boca Grande Channel. The habitats along the island chain are home to dozens of animals not found anywhere else in the country, like the Key deer, the Florida Keys mole skink and the Lower Keys marsh rabbit, and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary both protects North America’s only coral barrier reef and contains over 6,000 distinct marine and avian species.

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