Tampa nonprofit Live Wildly wants you to fall in love with Florida Wildlife Corridor

83 Degrees | Oct 4, 2022

The Florida Wildlife Corridor is becoming better-known thanks to a publicity campaign launched by a group called Live Wildly. That’s good news for the state’s animals and people, conservationists say, because both depend on the corridor remaining intact for their quality of life.

“We want people to fall in love with the corridor, we want people to experience it, all of its riches and things around it,’’ says Jennifer Sissler, chief marketing officer for Live Wildly, which was created and funded by Tampa businessman and philanthropist Arnie Bellini through his Bellini Better World Foundation.

The corridor is an 18 million-acre connection of wilderness, national forests, state parks and private lands that black bears, panthers and other animals roam in order to hunt, forage and find mates. Forty-two federally-listed endangered species are found there. The corridor stretches from the panhandle east, up into Georgia and down the peninsula to the Everglades and Florida Bay. About 10 million acres are conservation lands, protected by federal, state or local government and private land conservation easements that are often held by an individual, family or company.