History. 

Prior to European settlement, the upland pastures on Buck Island Ranch were central Florida dry prairie, with embedded seasonal wetlands throughout. They were part of a slightly higher drier section of land known as “Buck Island”, which continues to be the ranch name.  This dry prairie “island” lay in a broad swath of prairie that covered a 250 square mile area north and west of Lake Okeechobee.  The ranch is in the middle of the Indian Prairie that included dry prairie islands interspersed with marshes, wet prairies and sloughs that flowed like a mini river of grass between Lake Istokpoga and Lake Okeechobee.
This property has been used for agriculture since the early 1900s. The northern pastures were cleared for vegetable farming prior to WWII, during which time the rest of the property was used for grazing cattle on native range. The Durrance family owned the property from the 1950s until 1968, during which time they cleared much of the original dry prairie and established Bahia grass pastures on the more upland areas of Buck Island.  The lowering lying areas of the ranch to the east, south and west of “Buck Island” are in a semi-natural or semi-native state.  Most of these areas are dominated by native grasses and are used primarily for winter grazing.  The pastures were ditched starting in the 1940s and continuing into the 1970s, with extensive ditching in the improved pastures that served for drainage in the wet summer months and irrigation in the dry winter months.  The Harney Pond Canal, which borders the ranch on the north and west end and bisects the south end of the ranch was completed in the 1960s. This major canal conveyance continues to affect the hydrology of the entire ranch.