Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve (EBAP) staff have begun summer season seagrass monitoring. The weather cooperated and the afternoon storms held off long enough for staff to complete two transects on each of two scheduled sampling days.
The Coral Protection and Restoration (CPR) Program conducted a site visit to The Reef Institute in West Palm Beach. The visit allowed the team to see firsthand the extensive improvements that this key coral restoration partner has made their facility over the past year through support from the Florida’s Coral Reef Restoration and Recovery (FCR3) Initiative grant program.
Staff from Audubon Florida, Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries joined Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves (CHAP) staff for the Pine Island Sound rookery monitoring last week. The direct mission of the day was to look at one specific rookery that has more than 80 tricolored herons (TRHE) nesting on it.
Staff from Nature Coast Aquatic Preserve (NCAP) joined UF to conduct fish trawls off Anclote Key to sample fish population in the SCARMAPS quadrats. In addition to fish populations, data was gathered on water quality conditions, large predators in the quads and prop scar conditions. The 6-meter trawl was towed behind the boat in 2-minute segments, and all fish were counted and measured for the project.
Sea turtle nests on both Little St. George Island (LSGI) and Carrabelle Beach were affected by storm surge from Tropical Storm Bertha. On Little St. George Island, 149 nests were present when impacts from TS Bertha occurred. Of these, 88 were washed over, one was partially washed out, and 51 were completely washed out.
The Marathon building in the Keys, which houses the staff offices for the Florida Keys Aquatic Preserves and Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary programs, experienced a notable rooftop nesting season this year. The South Florida seabird nesting season runs from April 1 to August 31, and these rooftops have hosted nesting seabirds for several years.
More than 35 children and their parents spent a day exploring Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve last week during the inaugural “Rookery Bay Roots of Adventure Kids Event.” The half-day experience was held in conjunction with the 40th Annual Environmental Permitting Summer School (EPSS) and gave conference attendees' families an opportunity to experience Rookery Bay’s estuary
Everyone measures success differently. When a teacher says, after being in a Teachers On The Estuary (TOTE) workshop, that she will slow the pace during activity transitions to give her pre-K students time to pause and observe ants crossing the sidewalk, that is success. American biologist and naturalist E. O. Wilson would have been pleased to hear that.
On July 14, the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve team hosted Allix North from the Guana Tolomato-Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve for a hands-on demonstration of the YSI Hycat. This autonomous surface vehicle allows scientists to gather a variety of environmental data including water quality, sonar mapping and water flow. The Hycat is even equipped with its own EXO2 datasonde!
For the first time in ten years, Least terns have nested on Morgan Beach and for the first time in three years, Black skimmers have returned to Sand Dollar Island. These rare encounters are a promising sign that Rookery Bay’s avian monitoring is making a positive impact on these imperiled species.