Books set in the United States: Florida

I Take This Land by Robert Powell (1962).

This is a novel about the settlement of Florida during the frontier days from 1895 through 1946. The novel follows three families: Ward Champion, Joel Emmett and Rush Lighburn. Ward Champion is a possessive land promoter who won a railroad in a poker game, thus leading him to southern Florida. Joel Emmett is a farmer, whose love of the land ultimately costs him the lives of all he loved. Rush Lighburn is the obligatory villain, the wild man who lives far from society in the deep Everglades. All are madly in love with Annie, the young woman school teacher.

I first read this book back when I was in high school. I remembered the egrets, and how Joel, despite his better judgment, hunted them for their plumes. He needed money to save his own farmland. It was the fashion for women to wear hats with large feather plums. Joel was able to save his farm, but at the expense of the egrets. In the novel, it took years for the egrets to return.

Where are the egrets today?