WaterNotes

Marineland is celebrating their 10th season of the North Atlantic Right Whale Project with a brand new blog and fresh sightings of right whales off of Florida’s northeastern coastline. Seems that the recent blast of Arctic air may have helped encourage the whales further along their migration route; there have already been sightings along Indialantic [...]

Usually I greatly enjoy my job working outside as an environmental educator.  But when Florida’s mild winters turn to record-breaking cold, I have to admit I dont love braving the cold.  At least I can bundle up, unlike most of the wildlife in the state.  Particularly some of my favorite Florida year-round residents: five species [...]

I was probably a manatee in a past life. How do I know?  I won’t SCUBA dive into anything other than warm sauna-like conditions and I eat a lot of salads.  Ok, perhaps this isn’t the most convincing of arguments, but these marine mammals are my favorite in the world, as regular WaterNotes readers well [...]

2009 was not a good year for the sea cows. The Florida Fish and Widlife Commission released its preliminary report on manatee mortality in state waters today and revealed that the past season had a record high loss of manatees in state waters: 429!
The report briefly breaks down totals with some eye-opening revelations for [...]

Ever seen loggerhead turtles hatch and race for the ocean? No? Well here’s your chance. A turtlecam has been approved by USFWS and installed on a loggerhead turtle nest on Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys. The nest is due to hatch during any of the nighttime hours in the [...]

The St. Johns River Water Management District is circulating a warning of recent sightings of invasive Australian spotted jellyfish in the Indian River Lagoon near the Eau Gallie River. The first reported sightings of the spotted invaders came in the 2001 and 2002 seasons with no further jellies seen in the interim until just [...]

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 [...]