The online community of the Audubon Society of the Everglades
The news is about what could be expected: nearly 10 years after beginning Everglades restoration, no major component is complete. The 50-50 partnership established in 2000 isn’t faring too well either: the federal government isn’t paying its share, and the state has been unable to focus its priorities effectively.
All this in the National Research Council’s [...]
A pair of Least Grebes have begun nesting at Yamato Scrub in Boca Raton. These birds are extremely rare in Florida (only 6 records in over 100 years), although they do occur on Hispaniola and in Texas and Mexico/Baja California.
These are nesting birds, and as such, should not be closely approached. If you do visit [...]
The local papers all trumpet the two studies released this week by FSU and FAU, but no one will tell you where to go to find the reports.
Here’s a February draft of the FAU report (38-page PDF file), “Florida’s Resilient Coasts.” I’m fairly sure Barry Heimlich, of Broward Audubon, had a hand in this report, [...]
The October Kite is now online.
This just in from Hendry County:
JOINT GOVERNMENTAL MEETING BETWEEN HENDRY COUNTY AND THE CITIES OF
CLEWISTON AND LABELLE
The public is invited to attend a joint governmental meeting between Hendry County and the Cities of Clewiston and Labelle on the South Florida Inland Port Project. The meeting will be held on October 2, 2008 at the John [...]
For those of you who don’t get the email updates, here are the comments from Audubon of Florida about the U.S. Sugar purchase and the restoration of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. The gist is this: buy the land south of Lake O and use it for filter marshes so we can release water to [...]
The morning was hot and still when Paddy Cunningham led the workshop ‘Birding by Behavior and Habitat’ at Spanish River Park in Boca Raton. Birds were sparse in species and number, but the group was able to study some species carefully. Giving good looks were the American redstart, pileated woodpecker, prairie warbler, Northern waterthrush, spotted [...]
The latest issue of Palm Beach County’s ERM LWL e-newsletter (under Updates and News, click on September e-newsletter) has an article about our local celebrity, the American Oystercatcher family in the Lake Worth Lagoon:
An American oystercatcher (Haematopus palliates) was observed feeding with his parents along the mudflats at Snook Islands Natural Area in the Lake [...]
Once again, Curtis Martin, writing for the Miami Herald, has a timely and informative article. He did this last month as well. It’s articles like this one that make it hard for a blogger to avoid plagiarism: I simply can’t find enough fluff in the article to cut out. For example, here’s the lede:
A quick [...]
This just in from the SFWMD:
The South Florida Water Management District Governing Board is scheduled to meet this week on Wednesday and Thursday, September 10-11, 2008.
On Wednesday, September 10, District staff will be providing an update on the “River of Grass” land acquisition project during the scheduled Board committee meetings and workshop. The project update [...]
As it stands, the penalties for damaging seagrass beds in Florida are insubstantial. The FWC proposed increasing them in 2007, and again in the 2008 legislative session, but the bill was vetoed. They’re trying again in 2009. Today I received an email with a PDF of FWC’s proposal.
Some of the relevant issues in the paper:
The [...]
We get monthly updates from the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources Management (you see why we call it ERM all the time?), and I thought I’d share some items of interest with you. They’re all self-explanatory, so I’ll let them explain themselves, but here are the key items: T.S. Fay took out a [...]
