Why a Florida Bay trail bears Guy Bradley's name

The trail beside Florida Bay at Flamingo carries the name of a man killed while protecting its birds. Guy Bradley was an Audubon warden in 1905, decades before this shoreline became part of Everglades National Park.

Protecting birds meant confronting people who hunted them for their plumes. The National Park Service's history describes Bradley issuing citations and arresting violators. He was shot and killed in a confrontation arising from that work. The named trail commemorates his protection of a Florida Bay rookery.

The present path connects the visitor center and campground over one mile. Birds, butterflies and old pier pilings mark the shoreline of what was once a fishing village. Bradley worked in an earlier Florida Bay, where hunting and efforts to protect wildlife could bring neighbors into conflict. Congress authorized the national park in 1934; it opened in 1947. He lived to see neither milestone.

The Guy Bradley Visitor Center now introduces visitors to Flamingo's coastal ecosystems and Florida Bay. Flamingo stands on the mainland shore, across the bay from the Keys. On the waterfront, the warden's name brings the view into sharper focus: the birds visitors stop to watch were once the subject of dangerous enforcement work.

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The Florida Keys Files

The Florida Keys Files includes Bradley's story alongside Bum Farto's disappearance and the MacIvor family case, bringing historical and modern investigations from the region into one volume.

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