Loggerhead sea turtles still climb ashore to nest on Florida's panhandle less than an hour from Panama City, along one of the Sunshine State's last stretches of condo-free coastline. Just inland, in a vast cypress swamp, scientists have reported more than a dozen sightings of ivory bill woodpeckers, thought until just two years ago to be extinct.
From the elephant seal rookeries at Point Ano Nuevo on Monterey Bay to Vandenberg Air Force Base at Point Conception, nearly one-fifth of the waters off central California's coast will soon be protected under the Marine Life Protection Act.