A fellow journalist and I were sent to the Florida Keys to report on how the islands are bracing for the effects of the Deepwater Horizon blowout that is still spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was a week of hard work, hot sun and interesting interviews — and now that I’m home, [...]
Last weekend 10 manatees that had gotten into trouble around the state were rescued by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and their partners.
Most of the manatees had cold stress, which happens when temperatures drop below 68 degrees for too long.
Four juvenile manatees were rescued in St. Petersburg, Bradenton and Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge [...]
All you need is a hunting license, a $26 permit and the desire to slog through the swamp.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced Monday that it has created a special hunting season for “reptiles of concern” from March 8 to April 17. Right now, hunters can take reptiles of concern — as it’s small [...]
It’s like a horror movie plot. A devastating storm hits and huge snakes that squeeze their prey to death are escape into a jungle. They start reproducing, and soon, the population spirals out of control.
In Florida’s Everglades, it’s actually happening. No one knows exactly how many Burmese pythons there are out there in the swamp, [...]
You’ve probably heard about Burmese Pythons and how they’re a threat to the Everglades.
There’s a reproducing population of the invasive, non-native snakes, after pet owners released unwanted snakes into the wild. I’ve even heard stories of pet shops being leveled by Hurricane Andrew and their snakes escaping.
Sen. Eleanor Sobel has introduced a bill to ban [...]
This made me laugh out loud today, so I had to share it.
A group is giving away free condoms with snappy sayings about endangered animals across the U.S. “to highlight how unsustainable human population growth is driving species extinct at a cataclysmic rate.” It’s the Center for Biological Diversity in Tuscon, Arizona and they’re giving [...]
Emma is a beautiful bald eagle: White head and tail, brown body, yellow beak and thick, strong talons. But although she is perfectly helpful, she can’t survive in the wild.
I started volunteering at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, an organization here in Naples that has a wildlife rehab clinic, education center and does environmental policy [...]
If you absolutely have to see an alligator, want to reach out and touch one — or even hold one! — there are lots of places in South Florida. Personally, I think there’s something more exciting about seeing them in the wild (and I wrote about good places to do that here), but there are [...]
I’d never seen an alligator before.
So when the volunteer guide at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary told my parents and I that there was one up ahead on the edge of one of the lettuce lakes, we set out on our alligator hunt. In the three years since then, I’ve seen dozens and dozens — in captivity [...]
Remember when I wrote about how Florida’s record cold weather was causing animals to react in all sorts of strange ways? Well, while it paralyzed iguanas and brought Burmese pythons out into the sun, it brought manatees closer to shore in search of warm water. I wrote about how they were moving around, too.
Last week, scientists did [...]
