NAPLES — The greatest accomplishment of Rookery Bay’s history may be that, unlike the cities that sandwich it, the landscape between Naples and Marco Island has barely changed in the past 30 years.

Several hundred visitors learned Rookery Bay Research Reserve’s history with an opportunity to see and touch many of its native inhabitants at a 30th anniversary celebration that coincided with National Estuaries Day on Saturday.

Visitors learned that much occurred over the decades as told in stories by scientists about wild bear encounters, a rescue of a 45-foot whale with “eyes the size of soccer balls,” treasure hunters and decades of political shifts that affected the way the reserve operated.

Outside the Environment Learning Center, children dunked their hands into tanks filled with crawling live crabs while other children tried a walk-like-a-crab contest crawling belly-up on their hands and feet.

Inside, people meandered through labs led by researchers, dipped their hands into live aquariums to feel various types of estuarine creatures. Meanwhile, Rookery Bay’s first researchers told stories in a classroom about the reserve land’s early days.

Ed Carlson, superintendent of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and Audubon of Florida, said his job as a researcher morphed into that of treasure protector.

While working at the research center, he was called on by the Audubon Society to protect a nearby “treasure” that was discovered by a Sarasota group yielding a “gold detector,” he said.

“You can’t tell your wife, your friends, your co-workers … Find Sand Hill. Go there every day and protect that hill until further notice,” Carlson recalled of the phone call he received in the 1970s.

Armed with guns and a lawn chair, he sat atop the hill off the Hidden River every day for weeks.

Finally the day came when members of the Audubon Society, a film crew, the “treasure hunters” and dignitaries congregated at Sand Hill to dig up the treasure stored there by a Calusa Indian, King Carlos, who buried gold bars and coins, Carlson said.

After poking nearly a dozen 30-foot deep holes into the hill, no gold treasure was found, only gallons of water, Carlson added.

“I know what you’re thinking. I went there many more weekends and drilled many more holes,” Carlson said to a now-snickering audience.

Rookery Bay’s first research scientist, Bernie Yokel, 79, described the first marine research center at Rookery Bay.

Yokel and his wife stayed in the one-room “big house” while his four children stayed in small quarters.

“We had manatees in the front yard, bears in the back yard and snakes in the house,” Yokel said.

He reminisced about “mouse soup,” the water the family drank while he was gathering data that would be used “to arm themselves” in a 12-year fight against development of the wetlands.

Has your research ever been stifled by politics? asked audience member Oannes Pritzer, an ecologist from Florida Gulf Coast University.

Rookery Bay director Gary Lytton acknowledged some political influence, particularly when it came to global climate change research.

“The political environment does direct how agencies can use their resources and time,” Lytton answered.

Visitors who made it to the sign-up sheet early enough were able to climb aboard boat tours running from what was once Yokel’s backyard research lab for 15 years near Henderson Creek on Shell Island Road.

Pontoon boats brought guests into Rookery Bay, the environmental center’s namesake.

“This is where the salt and fresh water interface. That’s what an estuary is. A magical thing happens here, an explosion of life,” said Randy McCormick, Rookery’s education coordinator.

Peter Gagne, captain of the pontoon named “Good Fortune,” continued past the rookery, an island where long-legged birds such as herons, egrets and ibis still congregate today.

The boat cruised past a stone monument on the shore, called the Children’s Column.

Program coordinator Susan Cone then shared the history of how citizens worked to obtain the first 1,600 acres of what became Rookery Bay, now more than 110,000 acres.

“This was a tribute to the schoolchildren who in 1968 collected their pennies to help purchase the land,” Cone said.

The 1,600-acre piece of land was the epicenter of Rookery Bay, a strip between Bay Shore and Marco called “The Road to Nowhere,” which Deltona Corp. hoped to develop.

Rookery Bay is still writing history, Lytton said.

Work also is still being done to protect Keewaydin Island, which is 85 percent state-owned but has a project awaiting approval, he said.

“What an informative day,” said Rosi Daly, 60.

Her husband, John Daly, 64 added: “This is our first time here. We came here from our home in Falling Waters like we fell out of bed and we’re glad we did.”

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