Critical Wildlife Areas (CWAs) are established by the FWC under a Florida Administration Code rule to protect important wildlife concentrations from human disturbance during critical periods of their life cycles, such as nesting or migration. For each CWA, the boundaries and periods of time when portions of the area may be posted are defined in the CWA establishment order. Public access is prohibited within CWAs if posted, Closed to public access. Dogs, vehicles and vessels are also prohibited from posted areas. The boundary may be larger than the posted area due to the dynamic nature of habitat structure and use. Thus, the area closed each year may change.
To depict Critical Wildlife Area Boundaries.
Because of the number of caves includes in the Withlacoochee Caves CWA and the sensitivity of the cave sites, the Withlacoochee Caves CWA is represented by a larger, more general polygon of the Withlacoochee State Forest. This whole area is not representative of the CWA establishment order.
publication date
Users are encouraged to read and fully comprehend the metadata record prior to using these data. Please acknowledge the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) as the data source for any products developed from these data. Users should be aware that comparison with other data sets for the same area may be inaccurate due to inconsistencies resulting from changes in mapping conventions, data collection techniques, and computer processes over time. FWC shall not be liable for improper or incorrect use of these data.
100 Eighth Avenue Southease
CWA Coordinator
GeoPlan relied on the integrity of the attribute information within the original data.
Logically consistent. All attribute values fall within defined values.
These data are complete as of the data available to FWRI in March 2018.
These data are as horrizontally accurate as the establishment order coordinates and/or the land surveys provided to the FWC GIS Librarian by the CWA Coordinator.
This data is provided 'as is' and its vertical positional accuracy has not been verified by GeoPlan
Spatial and Attribute Information
KMLs were provided for 17 areas and 1 shapefile for one area by the CWA Coordinator. The KMLs were converted to shapefile using the KML to Layer conversion tool in ArcMap 10.2.2. This shapefile was merged with the provided shapefile. Then projected into the current coordinate system using the Project data management tool with the WGS_1984_(ITRF00)_To_NAD_1983_HARN transformation.
Attribute fields were matched between the polygon and point datasets representing FWC's CWAs. Any missing attributes were created and copied over from companion dataset.
Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 Eighth Avenue Southeast
KMLs were provided for 14 areas by the CWA Coordinator. The KMLs were converted to shapefile using the KML to Layer conversion tool in ArcMap 10.4.1 and then merged and projected to NAD83(2011)_FloridaGDL_Albers. This shapefile was appended to the previous version of the CWAs. Attributes were populated using an excel sheet provided by the CWA Coordinator. CWA_desc and Class fields were added to facilitate more accurate mapping. These attributes were filled using information gained from the individual CWA establishment orders. Metadata were updated.
Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 Eighth Avenue Southeast
The shapefile was updates with the below information:
1) Useppa Oyster Bar Critical Wildlife Area (Lee County) was re-established
and retained as is.
2) Port Orange Critical Wildlife Area (Volusia County) was established and digitized
according to the coordinates included in the establishement order CWA 17-19
3) The Withlacoochee Caves Critical Wildlife Area is represented by the portion
of the Withlacoochee State Forest where the included caves are located. This is
to geographically represent a point feature in a polygon dataset and to generalize
the cave locations to protect the sensitive resource. Note that the CWA protection
does not apply to the whole polygon, only the caves listed in the establishment order
are protected as described.
4) Tyndall Critical Wildlife Area boundaries have been updated and refined according to
a land title search completed on December 15, 2017.
Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 Eighth Avenue Southeast
GeoPlan downloaded this data in shapefile format from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission-Fish and Wildlife Research Institute FTP site on June 27, 2018. The data was received as a shapefile in projection: NAD_1983_2011_Florida_GDL_Albers. The dataset was then projected from NAD_1983_2011_Florida_GDL_Albers to FGDL Albers HARN using NAD_1983_To_HARN_Florida transformation. - Reprojected data to FGDL Albers HARN - Added a DESCRIPT field to attribute table based on NAME - Added a FGDLAQDATE field based on date received from source - Added fields WEBSITE and NEW_RE_CWA containing web links to source info - Uppercased all fields except for WEBSITE and NEW_RE_CWA - Changed name from Critical_Wildlife_Areas_fl_poly to cwabnd_mar18
Dataset copied.
Internal feature number.
ESRI
Feature geometry.
ESRI
Name of CWA
FFWCC
Dates when CWA area is closed to public access
FFWCC
List of species the CWA was established to protect
FFWCC
County in which CWA is located
FFWCC
Establishment Order number
FFWCC
Summary of CWA Establishment order text
FFWCC
Type of polygon, used for cartographic purposes
FFWCC
the greater area of CWA where a sub-section may be closed to public access
the portion of the established CWA that may be posted closed to public access
Critical Wildlife Areas (CWAs) FWC website link
GeoPlan
New Critical Wildlife Areas (CWAs) PDF link
GeoPlan
Area of CWA in acres
Esri
Field added by FGDL based on NAME
GeoPlan
The date FGDL acquired the data from the source
GeoPlan
Unique ID added by GeoPlan
GeoPlan
Area in meters
GeoPlan
Perimeter in meters
GeoPlan
431 Architecture PO Box 115706
The Florida Geographic Data Library is a collection of Geospatial Data compiled by the University of Florida GeoPlan Center with support from the Florida Department of Transportation. GIS data available in FGDL is collected from various state, federal, and other agencies (data sources) who are data stewards, producers, or publishers. The data available in FGDL may not be the most current version of the data offered by the data source. University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no guarantees about the currentness of the data and suggests that data users check with the data source to see if more recent versions of the data exist. Furthermore, the GIS data available in the FGDL are provided 'as is'. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no warranties, guaranties or representations as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the data provided by the data sources. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no representations or warranties about the quality or suitability of the materials, either expressly or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center shall not be liable for any damages suffered as a result of using, modifying, contributing or distributing the materials. A note about data scale: Scale is an important factor in data usage. Certain scale datasets are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes. Please be sure you are using the best available data. 1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the county level. 1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such as property parcel boundaries. 1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the multi-county or regional level. 1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the regional or state level or larger. Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact section of this documentation. For more information regarding scale and accuracy, see our webpage at: http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html
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Contact GIS Librarian
100 Eighth Avenue Southeast