WaterNotes

Remember the other day when I waxed philosophic about the chances of late-season turtle nests producing any viable hatchlings? Well, if the nests were laid in Palm Beach County, we could’ve added poaching to the list of potential harms. A man in Juno Beach lifted 120 eggs from a single nest for the purpose of [...]

Few things are as adorable as loggerhead hatchlings.  This little one’s hotfoot-scurry to the sea was captured by Lisa Morse, working in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area (via Marine Photobank). Loggerhead nests abound on the east coast of Florida. During a long beach walk today I was thrilled to count dozens – leading to hundreds [...]

Peter Tyack of Woods Hole took the TED Mission Blue folks through a spectacular view of the acoustics of whales and dolphins in his talk during the voyage. It was recently posted to TED.com and it may be my new favorite TED talk ever!  I am floored by the graphic representations of sound waves produced [...]

Well my friends it’s May 1st and sea turtle nesting season in Florida has officially begun.  (Yeeeeeeehaw!) I can’t quite get out to the Canaveral National Seashore today to look for fresh nests, but here’s hoping in the next few weeks that we have a successful start to the season. Sea turtle biologists and naturalists [...]

We headed out this morning to a favorite spot of mine on the Banana River branch of the IRL system, Kelly Park on Merritt Island.  Its not a particularly secluded or wild area.  If anything it’s rather highly manicured.  But of all the teaching spots I experienced while conducting field trips this place never failed [...]

The Wildlife Conservation Society publishes its book State of the Wild on a regular basis with essays and articles covering issues in wildlife conservation.  In the current edition, an article “Rarest of the Rare”, highlights ten species thought to be among the most critically endangered of them all. What surprises me about this list?  Several [...]

The Sea Turtle Preservation Society is an organization from my home county that does a tremendous amount of work – from outreach, to rescues, to stranding response, to beach cleanups – for sea turtles. The outreach and stranding response is especially important in Brevard County, since this area remains such an active hotspot for turtle [...]