WaterNotes

Today I met up with a good friend, and sometimes editor,  to do a test run for the One Ton Landed cleanups near Titusville. In our brilliance we decided the night before to bring out our kayaks and gear to try for a short paddle and sight additional cleanup spots (as well as look for [...]

I chose a different area to cleanup today along the northern IRL and finally ran across enormous evidence of fish kills that were reported from many of Florida’s coastal waterways following the freeze.  On a single 300 ft stretch of beachline (about a football field length) I found 621 dead burrfish, 5 northern pufferfish, 18 [...]

The annual synoptic aerial survey for manatees in state of Florida waters came in officially yesterday with a whopping all-time high count of the cows: 5,067!! This  is a staggering (and exciting) jump in population numbers from last year’s all-time high by over 1,200 individuals. While the survey will not be finalized (and thus truly [...]

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 [...]

And yes, dear friends, I’m calling it my Lagoon.  Many of my fellow ‘bloggers are taking the chance at the beginning of the year to round out some new resolutions in their ocean blogging, their personal lives, or in greening their lifestyles.  I’m going to attempt to all three at once by recommitting myself to [...]

Clearwater Marine Aquarium‘s rescued superstar bottlenose dolphin Winter now has her own children’s book. Winter’s Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again launched today, written by the Hatkoff’s who brought us the adorable Owen & Mzee story I’ve used in several zoo classroom environments. Winter was brought in by Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute and [...]