Lake Jackson Aquatic Preserve participated in the Tall Timbers Red Hills Fire and Nature Festival, where locals and visitors enjoyed the outdoors, learned about the benefits of prescribed fire for native wildlife and watched a live burn demonstration.
Attending with us this year were some of our invertebrate friends collected from Lake Jackson's waters.
Each of the five aquatic preserves within the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves offers a unique visit of protected submerged state lands, healthy mangrove shorelines, seagrass beds and oyster bars. Southwest Florida’s subtropical climate is home to a variety of animals as well, in addition to migrating birds.
On Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, a North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and her calf passed through GTMNERR’s Middle Beach area heading south towards St. Augustine. Many staff ventured out to view this rare event. Each year from November to April, female right whales migrate from their northern feeding grounds to their southern calving areas to give birth and raise their calves.
The 2025 Science Nite Series at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve ended on a high note… not so much with a bang, but an “Om.” The final evening welcomed Dr. Brent Jackson of Florida Gulf Coast University’s Water School, who guided participants through a thoughtful and engaging exploration of how time in nature can reduce stress, strengthen personal resilience and support overall well-being.
For the past five years, Northwest Florida Aquatic Preserve has been working on a grant funded by Deepwater Horizon Program’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) to add additional plantings of native vegetation to the islands at Project GreenShores II, place informational signage, remove invasive species and debris, and conduct monitoring.
The Tuesday before the Thanksgiving break, a local FWC law enforcement captain, lieutenants and officers joined Charlotte Harbor AP staff for a debris and fishing line clean up on one of the established Critical Wildlife Areas in Pine Island Sound.
The Coral Protection and Restoration Program (CPR) continues to administer state and federal funding to implement priority reef management and research objectives. One funded project led by Dr. Nikki Fogarty titled Optimizing Reproductive Success of Corals Spawned in Land-based Nurseries, is using innovative methods to improve upon aquaria induced coral spawning, larval survival, settlement and growout.
Oyster monitoring season is underway at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTMNERR), marking the start of another year of hands-on data collection across the Reserve’s intertidal reefs. The season began in mid-December with a volunteer training day focused on assessing oyster reef condition, including estimating percent cover and counting oyster clusters.
This week BBSAP team stayed busy with education events to start wrapping up the year. First the team headed over to Lecanto Primary School for their annual Science Night. This was the team's fourth year attending and it's always a great event. Over 100 students and families attended with opportunities to meet professionals from various scientific fields.
CHAP staff, along with the help from regional coordinating offices Estero Bay AP and Cedar Point Environmental Park, hosted the biannual volunteer training. Known as the Quality Assurance (QA) training, it serves as a refresher for samplers as well as offers time to condition instruments, sample for accuracy from the same waterbody and give program updates.