On our last day in Louisiana we went on the Honey Island Swamp tour in a river boat. The boat took us all around the swamp which is basically a flooded forest and up the river into the bayous. A bayous is a water way in swamp land that branches off from the main river and can be still or flow gently in any direction. The swamp is called Honey Island Swamp because lots of wild bees make their hives in the hollows in the trees. The wild honey is really tasty and good for you.
The tour guide told us all about the area and how people live in the swamp lands. The people mainly fish for alligators, cat fish, turtles and crawfish. They live in either a house boat that floats on the river or in houses on stilts so that they don't get flooded (like the one in this picture). To get around the people use boats because there are no roads.
The main trees in the swamp are cypress trees which are special because they are resistant to termites and water and are very strong because their roots go down into the earth and then turn around and come back up to the surface like an anchor. They are so strong that even when Hurricane Katrina came through, none of the trees fell down. The moss in the trees isn't dead, it is a living plant. It lives by getting its nutrients from the air, dust and the rain and does not hurt the trees. The more moss in an area shows that it is a healthy ecosystem.
A really fun thing was when our tour guide stopped the boat in the swamp in a shallow area and started shouting "pig! come here pig! pig! pig!" Then out of the bush a wild pig came and swam to the boat. It was a young pig that swam out for the marshmallows that the tour guide started throwing for him. The wild pigs harm the swamp land by eating and digging through the cypress tree roots and running through the bush. It takes months to train the pigs to come to the call and eat the marshmallows, this pig wasn't as tame as the other pigs he had trained before but he still hand fed it and pet it.
The swamp was an awesome place to visit because of all the wildlife and it was actually pretty beautiful to look at. We saw lots of birds, some turtles and even a couple of snakes, there weren't any alligators at this time of year because they hibernate in shallow water and come up for breath once every 24 hours. When we got back from the swamp the tour guide gave us a small alligator to hold. It was really soft and scaley and had very sharp teeth. He was pretty cute. Drew
The main trees in the swamp are cypress trees which are special because they are resistant to termites and water and are very strong because their roots go down into the earth and then turn around and come back up to the surface like an anchor. They are so strong that even when Hurricane Katrina came through, none of the trees fell down. The moss in the trees isn't dead, it is a living plant. It lives by getting its nutrients from the air, dust and the rain and does not hurt the trees. The more moss in an area shows that it is a healthy ecosystem. A really fun thing was when our tour guide stopped the boat in the swamp in a shallow area and started shouting "pig! come here pig! pig! pig!" Then out of the bush a wild pig came and swam to the boat. It was a young pig that swam out for the marshmallows that the tour guide started throwing for him. The wild pigs harm the swamp land by eating and digging through the cypress tree roots and running through the bush. It takes months to train the pigs to come to the call and eat the marshmallows, this pig wasn't as tame as the other pigs he had trained before but he still hand fed it and pet it. The swamp was an awesome place to visit because of all the wildlife and it was actually pretty beautiful to look at. We saw lots of birds, some turtles and even a couple of snakes, there weren't any alligators at this time of year because they hibernate in shallow water and come up for breath once every 24 hours. When we got back from the swamp the tour guide gave us a small alligator to hold. It was really soft and scaley and had very sharp teeth. He was pretty cute. Drew
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