Couple Bought a 45-Acre Swamp to Stop Development—Years Later, Hundreds of Wood Storks Are No Longer Endangered

When Jim Stevenson and Tara Tanaka bought a swamp near their home in Florida, they weren't looking for a typical piece of property.

They were trying to make sure the land would remain wild.

The couple purchased the swamp in 2007, after first living on a nearby 2-acre property. What began as an effort to protect a natural area from development eventually became a sanctuary filled with wildlife—including hundreds of nesting wood storks.

By 2022, the property was home to an estimated 275 nesting wood storks, along with an extraordinary mix of other animals. Blue herons, great egrets, green herons, anhingas and wood ducks shared the wetland with bobcats, raccoons, foxes, otters, beavers, coyotes, rabbits and alligators.

For Stevenson and Tanaka, however, the swamp is more than a place where animals happen to live.

It is a place they have spent years protecting, documenting and sharing with others.

A Swamp Becomes a Sanctuary

The couple's connection to nature goes back decades.

Stevenson arrived in Florida as a young child and remembers feeling drawn to the outdoors from an early age.

“My parents weren’t really interested in the outdoors,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat in 2021. “But for me, early on, it was like a calling.”

That calling shaped his career. While studying at the University of South Florida, he worked as a park ranger and eventually pursued a long career in natural-resource management rather than becoming a traditional professor.

“I didn’t want to be a professor. I wanted to be a naturalist… hands-on,” Stevenson said.

Tanaka came to conservation through a different path.

Raised in Miami, she spent about 30 years working in information technology before becoming deeply involved in cave diving, photography and documenting Florida's natural world. She met Stevenson at an FSU Lunch and Learn in 1992 while expanding her interest in Florida's springs. Together, they went on more than 50 cave dives.

Eventually, their attention turned to the wetland beside their home.

In 2007, they bought the swamp.

And then Tanaka began photographing what was happening there.

“There was a lot.”

Then the Wildlife Started Telling the Story

Tanaka could name the residents almost like a roll call.

“We have the only wood stork rookery within 50 miles, with up to 275 nests… that’s about 700 birds altogether!” she told the Tallahassee Democrat.

There were also coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, foxes, otters, beavers, marsh rabbits, ducks, spoonbills, egrets, herons and anhingas.

And at least three mature alligators.

Tanaka even captured video of one of them slamming a wood stork into a tree while feeding.

Her photography became another way of protecting the place—not by putting a fence around every animal, but by allowing people to see what was there.

Her wildlife photographs have appeared in Discover Magazine and Nature’s Best Magazine, and her work has been displayed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. She also received multiple first-place awards for wildlife photography.

The couple later took another step to protect the property, obtaining a conservation easement in 2016.

The Swamp Gave Wood Storks a Place to Thrive

The importance of the swamp becomes even clearer when it comes to the wood storks.

The birds depend on suitable wetland habitat for nesting, and the protected property became an important local rookery. Tanaka told the Tallahassee Democrat that the swamp had up to 275 wood stork nests, representing about 700 birds altogether.

That is especially significant because wood storks were once in serious trouble. The species was classified as endangered in 1984 because of habitat loss. It was later reclassified as threatened in 2014, before eventually being removed from the federal endangered and threatened species list as its population continued to increase.

The couple's swamp is only one part of that much larger recovery, but it shows why protecting habitat can matter. By keeping this wetland intact, Stevenson and Tanaka preserved a place where wood storks could return, nest and raise their young.

Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are 10,000 to 14,000 nesting pairs of wood storks across about 100 colony sites in the southeastern United States.

For a species whose decline was closely linked to habitat loss, the transformation of one piece of wetland into a protected nesting ground offers a powerful example of what conservation can accomplish.

The Problem Is People

For Stevenson and Tanaka, seeing wildlife thrive so close to home also makes the threats to nature impossible to ignore.

“The problem is people,” Stevenson told the Tallahassee Democrat.

He pointed to human waste, excessive fertilizer use, septic systems and declining water flow as some of the pressures that can damage wetlands, springs and other natural systems.

Tanaka has taken photographs and videos partly because she wants to preserve a record of species that may not always be there.

“I think in my lifetime, there will be the extinction of many,” she said.

What One Piece of Protected Land Can Become

The story of their swamp isn't simply about buying land.

It is about what can happen when people decide that a piece of nature is worth keeping.

A property that could have been developed instead became a place where wood storks raise their young, alligators hunt, otters move through the water and dozens of other species find shelter.

Stevenson has spent much of his life encouraging others to take an active role in protecting the natural world. His advice to young people is surprisingly broad.

“There are so many kinds of biology you can make into a career,” he said, pointing to land conservation, fire management, waterways, lakes and the study and protection of animals. “Anyone of those professions would help to keep what we have.”

And perhaps that is what makes their story so hopeful.

They didn't need to save an entire forest or protect an entire species themselves.

They protected one piece of land.

Then they watched what happened when that land was simply given the chance to remain alive.

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