Florida Bay, the largest body of water within Everglades National Park, contains over 800 square miles (2072 square km) of marine bottom, much of which is covered by submerged vegetation. Seagrass and algae provide shelter and sustenance to numerous marine organisms, which in turn sustain the food chain that supports all higher vertebrates in the bay. 

The hard bottom areas of the bay are home to corals and sponges, and lure anglers from around the world to try their luck with rod and reel. In fact, a wide variety of commercial and recreational important fish, crustaceans, and mollusks thrive within the estuarine environments of the Everglades. The continued health of these marine environments is important in sustaining productive fisheries outside park boundaries. (from the NPS.gov website)

On 30 May 1934, an Act was passed authorizing a park to be acquired through public donations. Everglade National Park was to be "...wilderness, (where) no development ... or plan for the entertainment of visitors shall be undertaken which will interfere with the preservation intact of the unique flora and fauna of historic values the essential primitive natural conditions now prevailing in this area." This mandate to preserve wilderness and its biota is one of the strongest in the legislative history of the National Park System. Thirteen years later, through a combination of federal, state and private lands, a vast wetland teeming with life was dedicated as a national park. Everglades was the first national park preserved primarily for its abundance and variety of life, rather than for scenic or historic values.