General Information- Parking fee is $1 per hour or $5 per day. Lee County Annual Parking Stickers are accepted at this location. If paying with a check for rentals/parking or programs all checks must be payable to: Lee County Board of County Commissioners
- This park has three looped hiking trails that total five miles. Download the
trail map and facility brochure.
- The kayak landing is located 1/2 mile from parking lot. Launching paddlecraft is not recommended unless you don't mind toting your craft by foot.
- This park is a designated Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail site. For more information, maps, and guides please visit the Great Florida Birding Trail website.
- This park is treated with land management tactics including prescribed fires.
Learn about prescribed fires in Lee County.
What is a Mitigation Park? Hickey Creek Mitigation Park is co-managed by the Lee County Department of Parks & Recreation and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. It consists of a variety of habitats including palmetto-oak scrub, pine flatwoods, and seasonal wetlands. Views of scenic Hickey Creek can be enjoyed from the trail and overlook areas. The ecosystem presently supports the threatened Florida Scrub-Jay and gopher tortoises. Environmental mitigation is an attempt to offset the detrimental impacts of development on a certain species or a type of native plant community. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) implemented the Mitigation Park Program as an alternative to developers compensating for the impacts of their developments on their own lands. Mitigation Parks are an effective way to protect native plant communities and the plants and animals that rely on them. Hickey Creek Mitigation Park was originally established by the FWC and Lee County to mitigate for gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) habitat destroyed by development in southwest Florida. See the Land Management Plan for more details.
Hickey Creek Mitigation Park Wildlife Species List
Hickey Creek Mitigation Park Plant Species List
The acquisition of lands to form Hickey Creek Mitigation Park (HCMP) started in 1994. Adding to 10 acres of land already preserved, Lee County's Environmentally Sensitive Lands Program and Florida Communities Trust purchased 770 acres. Five parcels, totaling 82 acres, were acquired through the Conservation 20/20 program. HCMP was opened to the public on April 20, 2002, making this a natural area for all to enjoy. HCMP encompasses 862 acres of land consisting of pine flatwoods, scrubby flatwoods, freshwater marshes, cypress swamps, hardwood hammocks, and oak-palm forests. The Tourist Development Council of Lee County assisted in the funding of waterfront facilities at Hickey Creek. The creek flows through HCMP for over 1 mile and discharges into the Caloosahatchee River. Hickey Creek is also part of The Great Calusa Blueway Paddling Trail. The terrestrial and aquatic communities within HCMP support a variety of wildlife including gopher tortoises, Florida Scrub-Jays, Florida panthers, bobcats, eastern indigo snakes, American alligators, river otters and a variety of birds.
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