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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Biscayne National Park

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Biscayne National Park

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This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 25, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 00:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Underwater view of a coral reef at Biscayne National Park

Biscayne National Park is a U.S. National Park in southern Florida, south of Miami. The park, first designated as a national monument in 1968, preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs, some of the best scuba diving and snorkeling areas in the United States. 95% of the park is water, accessible only by boat. It covers 172,971 acres (69,999 ha) and includes Elliott Key, the first of the true Florida Keys. The park protects four ecosystems: mangrove swamp, shallow waters, coral limestone keys and the Florida Reef, providing a nursery for larval and juvenile fish, molluscs and crustaceans, and nesting grounds for endangered sea turtles. Sixteen endangered species including the Schaus' swallowtail butterfly, smalltooth sawfish, manatees, and green and hawksbill sea turtles may be observed in the park. The people of the Glades culture inhabited the region as early as 10,000 years ago before rising sea levels, the Tequesta people occupied the area from about 4,000 BC to the 16th century, when the Spanish took possession of Florida. Following the Cuban Revolution, Elliott Key was used as a training ground for infiltrators into Castro's Cuba by the CIA and Cuban exile groups. (Full article...)