WaterNotes

I was lucky enough to visit Busch Gardens Tampa Bay last week with a number of close friends. Inbetween riding roller coasters (including Sheikra, which nearly killed me..) we found plenty of time to observe African wildlife and some native Florida wildlife in the exhibits. I visited Busch back in October of last year on a safari experience to feed giraffes. (Or as we in the buisness like to call them, “G-rafs!”) This time around we were lucky to stumble across Busch’s education area and hand fed flamingoes!

While its true flamingoes have upside down beaks and usually go sifting through the shallows for crustaceans and algae and other goodies, they apparently also have a love for duck chow. Letting giant five-foot-tall male Caribbean flamingoes nibble chow from my hand was sort of surreal. Their enormously loud honking was even better. And those upside down beaks, goodness. I had no idea they would feel so strange! Unlike most of the raptor beaks I’ve touched in the past flamingo beaks feel almost unnaturally smooth and nearly plastic-like. I’m not even sure how to truly describe it! Just by looking at the animals you would imagine that those giant beaks would be rather hefty hardware but when we touched them they seemed incredibly lightly built.

The flock made a total mess of nibbling chow from our hands but the Hawaiian nene geese - also in the exhibit - made short work of the leavings.

All in all a spectacular visit to the park. If you find yourself in Tampa, and you’re feeling adventurous, do try the Safari tour to feed g-rafs and get yourself back to the education buildings. In addition to flamingoes they’ve got African servals, coatimundi, African crowned cranes, Hoffman’s sloths, and other critters in their care.

Its been a hard few weeks here in central Florida. The torrential rains made it hard to work, hard to drive, and especially hard to carry out cleanups. Thankfully the skies parted this morning and a joint cleanup, including data collection for the Ocean Conservancy, got off to a good start out on the MINWR’s Playalinda Beach. I discovered something very interesting today: cleanups are better with friends. I’ve had a semi-dismal outlook on the human species for the last month as I’ve continued to pull dozens of pounds of debris out of the Indian River Lagoon system. But when you’ve got friends around to spy trash, help with the pickup, take photos, and tell hilarious stories.. well.. its just such a different beast to tame.

We were rewarded this morning with a slew of wildlife on the refuge system as well. The gators must be glad for the rain. We saw several - including a two foot juvenile and a five foot adult - cross the road. (Don’t even ponder if that chicken joke applies.) A large softshell turtle crossed as well. Up in the sky we sighted juvenile and adult brown pelican, red shouldered hawks, scrub jays, kingfishers, egrets, cormorants, turkey vultures, and plenty of snowy egrets.

In the water we were in for quite a shock. I’ve never seen manta rays in person and we actually had a very large ray - perhaps a manta perhaps a devil - sweep right by the beach in water shallow enough to clearly see the outline of the body. My fellow crazy-naturalists estimate his size at ten feet across the disc/wings. Truly a huge animal. Unfortunately all I saw were some splashes and the sideline of a right pectoral fin as it swept out of the water once. Not exactly enough for a proper ID, but given that the group is full of fish nerds like myself, well, I believe their sighting.

I did get lucky enough to spot pilot whales about a football field off the beachline. Which, for me, is truly fantastic since they are one of my favorites!

After cleaning out the beach line we headed off to Haulover Canal to spot some manatees. A few friendlier ones were hanging out beneath a couple of very adventurous kayakers at the canal. Most of the ones we could sight at the surface had watercraft strike scars. I’ve yet to see a manatee outside of a zoo or aquarium that did not have such scars, in fact.

All in all an excellent outing and quite a large collection of debris generated. The strangest thing we found? A rusted out grill. Probably left behind last summer.

Oceana consistently leads the pack in ocean conservation outreach. Their tremendous web presence - as well as a blog - recently expanded to include a new campaign. Scared For Sharks features a new ocean hero, January Jones from the teevee series Mad Men. Now.. I hardly have the time for teevee these days.. I’m too wrapped in all my miscellaneous ocean projects but if Ms. Jones can lend her voice and make shark conservation a conversation at the dinner table then I’m all for it!

Oceana is also running an online vote for its 2009 Ocean Hero Award. There are a slew of deserving heroes listed from students with a passion for sea turtles to a shark education specialist! Get your vote in this weekend. The winner will be announced on World Oceans Day - June 8th!

One hundred and nintey feet of shoreline on the lagoon. Three hours of my Tuesday morning. Two cups of coffee. One pair of gloves. Four giant trash bags. And a certain sense of defeat and exhaustion by lunchtime.

Here’s the tally:

19 plastic water bottles
57 cigar wrappers
193 cigarette butts
24 Coke cans
17 beer bottles
9 plastic bags
2 six-pack rings
1 cell phone
1 unmentionable
3 lengths of monofilament
4 empty cigarette packs
2 Hawaiian plastic leis
1 lost flip flop
2 baseball hats
1 ‘go Magic!’ sign

I dont even know what to say in summation.

Straight from SnagFilms.com, I’ve posted Robinson Crusader. Even after watching it twice I’m still not sure of what to make of Keith Robinson who curates after a family owned private island in the Hawaiian chain and cares for and manages several endangered species in the process. But this piece was, for me, serious food for thought on the realities of stewardship, conservation, and the difference in strategy between an individual and a large organization. I just hope Keith never makes good on his threats to scorch the refuge he has steadily built.