NAPLES, Fla. (AP) -- A homesteader leaving his Everglades land after years of fighting the state's claim on it is moving to a bigger, nicer house, but he mourns what he's lost.

"I will never see the turkeys run up and down the road again," said Jesse Hardy, 70. "I will never see my deer feed in my yard again. ... I will never be able to freely do what I wanted to do."

Hardy's land was the last of 19,000 parcels purchased by the state over the past two decades to help return the Everglades to its natural state. Most owners happily sold, having bought in a 1960s land scam. Hardy rejected repeated offers, however, saying he wanted to hang onto a dying rural lifestyle and pass it on to the 9-year-old boy he has raised on the land with the boy's mother.

A judge approved a settlement last year, and Hardy accepted a $4.95 million check in July. The deadline for him to leave the property was Thursday. Hardy paid $60,000 in 1976 for the land about 40 miles east of Naples. He built a small, clapboard house on his 160 acres, dug a well and used propane instead of electricity.

With the settlement money, Hardy bought a new house and was moving his belongings into it this week, but he says it really isn't home for him. "It don't fit me, it don't fit me at all," he said.

Construction crews are scheduled to start filling in canals and tearing apart roads on Hardy's Everglades land later this year. Once restored, his parcel and the surrounding area will connect with a state forest and wildlife reserves. The $8.4 billion Everglades project seeks to restore the slow-moving river that once stretched uninterrupted from a chain of lakes near Orlando south to Florida Bay.

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There were plenty of strange news items in South Florida during 2005. As usual a good number of them involved animals. Some you might have read about in prior posts of this blog.

In no specific order here are some of the highlights.

A Collier County woman was afraid her neighbor's Chihuahua was going to attack her, so she shot and killed it.

Three teenagers were charged with kidnapping a 15-year-old boy and demanding $50 ransom be dropped off at a Fort Myers Taco Bell.

A homeless man obsessed with tennis star Anna Kournikova swam naked across Biscayne Bay, in Miami Beach, in search of her home and got caught in the buff at her neighbor's pool. As police arrested him, he screamed, "Anna! Save me!"

A drunk Monroe County prosecutor thought it would be funny to streak across a parking lot and hop into a friend's car. The problem was he jumped naked into the wrong car and was arrested.

Police checking to make sure no one was hurt after a tornado ripped the roof off a Palm Bay home said they found 54 marijuana plants growing in a bedroom.

In Port Charlotte, a pastor called police to remove 16 congregants who refused to stop singing as he tried to begin his sermon.

More than a dozen Broward County deputies burst onto the scene of a funeral - reportedly with guns draw - and arrested the deceased's grandson. It turned out they had the wrong guy.

Once again, O.J. Simpson couldn't stay out of the news. In July, a neighbor called 911 and reported Simpson was being beaten by his girlfriend. Later that month Simpson was ordered to pay $25,000 for pirating satellite television signals.

A Key West man robbed a bank with a pitchfork.

One Burmese python swallowed a Siamese cat, another slithered into a poultry shack and ate a turkey before getting stuck inside because of the bulging bird and yet another tried to devour a 6-foot alligator before the ambitious effort caused the 13-foot snake to burst.

And the answer to the python problems, a beagle puppy, named Python Pete, was trained to sniff out pythons in Everglades Park.

Can't wait for see what happens this year.

BY SARA BLUMENTHAL, sblumenthal@keyreporter.com

The Marine Mammal Conservancy was created in 1995 with a mission - to rescue, rehab and release stranded and sick dolphins. Now the organization finds itself in the middle of a legal battle with one of its founders.

Rick Trout is suing the non-profit foundation, saying it illegally removed him from the board in February 2005. Trout, a well-known dolphin advocate, has been working with marine animals since 1978.