Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land.PINHOOK: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land JANISSE RAY One of the last vestiges vestige /ves·tige/ (ves´tij) the remnant of a structure that functioned in a previous stage of species or individual development.vestig´ial ves·tige (v  s of the American wilderness is the swamp that connects the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuse in southern Georgia with the Osceola Osceola (ŏsēō`lə, ō–), c.1800–1838, leader of the Seminole. He was also called Powell, the surname of his supposed white father. In the early 1830s, Osceola was living close to Fort King, near the site of Ocala, Fla. National Forest in northern Florida. The area is called Pinhook Swamp, With water too plant tangled for the passage of boats, this beautiful landscape is a source of mystery. The once-fragmented swamp was reconnected after the federal government purchased Pinhook's 170,000 acres in 1988. TO Ray, an environmental activist, the swamp represents something larger than itself: an example of how wildlife responds when threatened by human activity. Pinhook's story includes past and present wildlife such as woodpeckers woodpecker, common name for members of the Picidae, a large family of climbing birds found in most parts of the world. Woodpeckers typically have sharp, chisellike bills for pecking holes in tree trunks, and long, barbed, extensible tongues with which they impale their insect prey. Their spiny tail feathers act as a prop in climbing, resting, and drilling., red wolves, black bears, and panthers. The author details both the logging and strip mining strip mining: see coal mining. that despoiled the area and the conservation work by organizations such as the Audubon Society and the Florida Wildlife Federation. Ray's story reveals how some people have made it their lives' work to preserve Pinhook. Chelsea Green Pub., 2005, 155 p., paperback, $12.00.
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