Audubon of Florida News

Accompany Beach Clean up Crews on Panhandle Beaches

Audubon is pre-screening wildlife observers for oil spill clean up activities. This is important work. Cleanup activities pose significant threats to wildlife and habitats.

Official beach clean up crews responding to the oil spill will now be required to have a wildlife observer accompanying them during night work in the Panhandle, out of concern for impacts to beach wildlife like marine turtles, shorebirds and beach mice.

Observers will be given hazardous material training as well as training in a monitoring protocol, but will be required to have some background in biology and conservation, either through practical field experience in an academic or professional capacity, or through coastal field volunteer experiences such as Bird Stewards or Marine Turtle Patrol participants. Interested qualified individuals are being recruited for activities on sandy beaches from Escambia to Taylor counties. This will be ongoing, paid work.  Click here to sign up for this opportunity.

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Thousands of people held hands across the sands on Florida’s beaches at noon on Saturday, June 26, 2010 to show their support for clean energy and opposition to new offshore oil drilling.

What began as a movement in Florida last February, spread throughout the country and the world today. On Florida beaches, organizers from around the state reported that hundreds to thousands of people gathered to draw a human line in the sand. Final tallies of the turnout are expected Sunday or Monday.

On Miami Beach, the human line stretched beyond what the eye could see, and Audubon of Florida was there. For more information, visit Hands Across the Sand.

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Speak up at a public hearing in Miami with the National Park Service this week to support an additional 5.5 miles of bridging for Tamiami Trail and restore vital wading bird habitat.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 24, 2010 at the South Dade Regional Library, 10750 Southwest 211th Street, in Cutler Bay, Florida. Your support for raising the Trail is needed.

For the better part of a century, Tamiami Trail has cut off the natural Everglades water flows that made it one of the richest ecosystems on Earth.  Altering Tamiami Trail has long been recognized as one of the central needs in Everglades restoration.  With this understanding, the National Park Service studied six different plans for bridging the Trail to let the water flow, and their preferred plan has the most ecological benefits of the six and is cost effective.

This is a huge step forward for a project that has been mired in decades of delay and disputes, but your help is needed to ensure that the recommendation becomes a reality.  Please join us on Thursday and express your support for bridging Tamiami Trail.

Important Facts

•    An additional 5.5 miles of bridging will not only allow more water to flow into Everglades National Park, but will reconnect habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife.
•    Flows into Northeast Shark River Slough, which historically made up 65 percent of flows into the southern Everglades, will be greatly increased.
•    Bridging Tamiami Trail to this extent lays the groundwork for and will enhance the benefits of future Everglades restoration projects.

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If you see oil spill response or preparation harming Florida’s natural resources or wildlife, call a new sensitive areas hotline at 251-445-3009 today.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) have established a new sensitive areas hot line for citizens to report oil spill preparation or response activities that may be causing damage to natural resources—wildlife or their habitats.

Beach dependent and nesting birds are particularly sensitive this time of year. Because of the urgency with which local governments, coastal property owners, state agencies and BP contractors are engaging on spill response, coordination has not been perfect. As a result, confirmed reports have been received of damage to natural resources from preparation activities in areas where oil has not and hopefully never will make landfall.

If you witness spill prep or response-related activities that appear to be damaging Florida wildlife or habitats, we encourage you to call the new sensitive area hot line. Also, send Audubon details and photos if possible to flconservation@audubon.org.

The sensitive areas hot line is 251-445-3009.

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Dr. Paul Gray, Audubon of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee expert, (center) with SFWMD Governing Board Chair Eric Buermann (L) and Governing Board Member Kevin Powers

Audubon’s Lake Okeechobee expert, Dr. Paul Gray, attended the groundbreaking today, June 18, 2010, for the Lakeside Ranch Stormwater Treatment Area (STA), located on the northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee.

Hosted by the South Florida Water Management District, the groundbreaking launches a project that is part of the Lake Okeechobee Protection Plan. The STA is designed to clean water before it flows into the Lake.  When completed, this $70 million project will be a 2,000-acre (about three square miles) artificial wetland, projected to be able to remove around 19 tons of phosphorus per year, along with excess nitrogen and other pollutants. Once it is functioning, the STA will be essential to restoring Lake Okeechobee.  Audubon applauds the cooperative work of state and federal agencies to complete it, even in these difficult budget times.

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Royal Tern chick courtesy of Linda Martino

Oil spill volunteers are helping Florida Audubon’s Northeast bird stewarding program and you can read about it and watch a video here.

Bird stewards are important to help boost populations of nesting shorebirds and seabirds in order to offset the losses of these species as a result of the Gulf Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Join Audubon’s efforts to respond to the oil spill and protect Florida’s birds and beaches.

Much still needs to be done to ensure beach-dependent bird populations remain strong on Florida’s east and west coasts. To help boost populations in the longer term, Audubon staff and volunteers are assisting land managers and agencies to implement proper management measures, including:

•     Pre-posting of historical nesting sites: by posting (installing a symbolic fence of posts, signs and rope) an area of the upper beach where birds have nested in the past, we allow these birds to find a disturbance-free place to lay their eggs as early in the season as possible. This month the storm season starts in earnest in Florida and hopefully chicks will be big enough to fly or walk into the dunes to escape higher than normal tides.
•     More comprehensive monitoring of beaches throughout Florida to find nesting sites and post them is needed, as well as regular monitoring of nesting birds to assess productivity.
•     Managers need support to implement measures to protect the birds from the impacts of disturbances by dogs, nuisance predators and vehicles.

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Worried about what’s happening on the Panhandle’s beaches? You can view the reconnaissance results in map and photo form  from State of Florida staff patrolling the Panhandle’s beaches online here: http://map.floridadisaster.org/GATOR/index.html

Similarly, the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s daily consolidated wildlife report, detailing oiled and non-oiled wildlife taken into rehab by state, can be found online here:  http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doctype/2931/55963

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FWC schedules meeting on Pensacola Beach June 15 concerning oil spill
Commissioners with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will be in Pensacola Beach Tuesday, June 15, to hear from people with fish and wildlife concerns related to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The informal meeting will be held from 5-7 p.m. (CDT). The commissioners will conduct a fact-finding tour prior to the meeting.
“We know the oil spill has had far-reaching influences,” said FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto. “This is an opportunity for us to go to the people who are most affected and for them to bring us up to speed on fish or wildlife matters that are important to them. Those matters could come from charter or recreational fishermen or from wildlife advocates with particular concerns.”
The meeting will be held at the Hilton Pensacola Beach Gulf Front Hotel, 12 Via de Luna Dr., Pensacola Beach.
The FWC’s regularly scheduled meeting will take place June 23-24 in Lake Mary near Orlando.

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Oiled Wildlife Response Information and Ways Audubon Volunteers Can Help Wildlife and Birds at Risk

As oil slicks and tar balls continue to come ashore on western Panhandle beaches and wildlife habitat, Audubon of Florida’s volunteers will be interested to get clarification on specific roles they may play in response.  According to the Coast Guard-Sector St.Pete and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, all oiled wildlife responses will be handled only by experienced and trained professionals.  Citizens should NOT travel to oil-impacted locations with the intent to help if they have not registered, been trained or been called or assigned tasks.  This will be counterproductive.

However, while that wildlife response role for volunteers is limited, local response needs are almost limitless.  All volunteers should register either with www.VolunteerFlorida.org or other major organization like www.AudubonofFlorida.org, AND affiliate themselves with a local organization coordinating non-professional response efforts, such as wildlife rehabilitators who may be called upon to receive wildlife for rehabilitation after it has been cleaned of oil.  This will facilitate matching needs with volunteers efficiently.

Audubon volunteers are currently being solicited and engaged in shorebird and seabird nesting stewardship project on both coasts.  Audubon recognizes there will be heavy impacts to beach-nesting birds in the northern Gulf and therefore is helping organize and field volunteers to help assure Florida’s nesting colonies of the same species are as successful as possible. Nesting occurs from April through September and therefore requires a sustained and labor intensive involvement from volunteers.  Please consider responding positively to this request for your help. Go to: http://fl.audubonaction.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=5901.0&printer_friendly=1

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Audubon of Florida to Bring the Everglades to the American Museum of Natural History

For Immediate Release

Contacts: Dr. Shawn Liston, sliston@audubon.org, 239-354-4469

Megan Tinsley, mtinsley@audubon.org, 786-295-4954

June 10, 2010, New York, NY—Audubon of Florida experts will bring the Everglades alive for children and families at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on Sunday June 13 with interactive presentations about one of America’s most unique ecosystems.

Shawn Liston, Ph.D., Florida Audubon’s Research Manager for the Southwest Region, and Megan Tinsley, Audubon’s Everglades Policy Associate, will be featured in the Museum’s Milstein Science Sundays: Restoring the Everglades.  The program will be held between 12 noon and 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 13th in the Museum’s Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024. (Visit amnh.org for directions and additional information). Shawn and Megan will be accompanied by Dr. William Loftus, an ecologist who has worked in the Everglades for more than 30 years, and Jarod Miller, a zoologist and television personality.

Children will learn about the Everglades through the story of two raindrops as they travel southward through the Everglades, along the way learning about this unique natural system and the birds and other wildlife that depend on a healthy ecosystem to survive.  Many important plant and animal species will be introduced throughout this journey, including Everglades Snail Kites in the Lake Okeechobee watershed, wading birds, such as the White Ibis, and alligators in the River of Grass, the Florida panther and Wood Stork in the Big Cypress Swamp, and the charismatic Roseate Spoonbill in Florida Bay.

As the raindrops travel through the Everglades, the audience will see some of the current threats to this fragile ecosystem, including increased development and human demand for water and flood protection, poor water quality, spread of non-native species, and climate change.  They’ll learn about the incredible efforts being made to protect this invaluable environmental resource and how they can help to make a difference.

Hands-on activities will allow children to make frogs from recycled corks, color images of various Everglades animals and habitats, and ‘forage’ like wading birds to learn the importance of concentrated prey.  Young people will also meet several live animals found in the Everglades, including an alligator, a Burmese python and a young Florida panther, and see aquariums of native and non-native Everglades fish.

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