The Sanibel Music Festival is in full swing. The 25-year-old island tradition has the distinction of a very intimate setting. As Wendy Humphrey reports, it’s even more intimate for those hosting the musicians.

Mechanical roosters, an onshore iceberg and fallen live oak tree limbs are among large-scale sculptures that debuted Sunday afternoon on the grounds of a Civil War-era fort in Key West.

Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park has become a unique outdoor "gallery" during the annual Sculpture Key West exhibition. There are 28 works of art there and about 20 additional sculptures exhibited at two other Civil War-era forts and sites in Key West.

Program director for Sculpture Key West Karley Klopsenstein says there are many things that make the event unique.

“First of all you just can’t beat the site. I mean you have the ocean here You have this beautiful land. You have sunny, warm weather in the winters. And it’s a big draw for people just because of that.”

The exhibit includes large-scale works in traditional and experimental media, created by acclaimed national and international sculptors as well as emerging artists.

Many pieces are designed to be visible from air and sea as well as land, providing viewing opportunities for boaters and arriving and departing airline passengers.

The exhibition runs through April 14.

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Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park has become a unique outdoor "gallery" this week during the annual Sculpture Key West exhibition. There are 28 works of art with about 20 additional sculptures exhibited at two other Civil War-era forts around the island.

Program director for Sculpture Key West Karley Klopsenstein says the exhibit includes large-scale works in traditional and experimental media, created by acclaimed national and international sculptors.

“We have a total of about 48 artists in the show this year in all 3 venues. They are from the United States. And also we have our international artists – artists from Poland, originally from Cuba, artists from Germany. And they are anywhere from students to professors and experts in the level of their field.”

Mechanical roosters, an onshore iceberg and fallen live oak tree limbs are among the sculptures.

Many pieces are designed to be visible from air, sea smf land, providing viewing opportunities for boaters and people on airplanes.

The exhibition runs through April 14.

Take the Girl Scouts of Immokalee, add a generous grant, and stir in an innovative young director and choreographer. The result is a unique teen theater group about to perform its first collaboration for the public. WGCU's Christine Buckley sat in on a rehearsal.

The Tower Gallery on Sanibel is celebrating its 25th year as an artists’ cooperative this weekend. Wendy Humphrey reports.

Marine life artist Wyland, who has painted 94 mammoth "Whaling Wall" murals around the world to promote ocean conservation, dedicated his final U.S. wall painting Monday in the Florida Keys.

Wyland’s newest mural is a panoramic 7,500-square-foot representation of the living coral reef that parallels the Keys. It wraps around a four-story, four-sided building in the median of the Overseas Highway.

Wyland has spent more than 20 years diving in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. He credits the Keys reef, the only contiguous coral expanse in North America, for inspiring his work.

“So I take all that inspiration that I see when I’m diving in the Florida Keys in this case. I take all that beauty and I simply paint it up on a wall for people to enjoy. This is a mural that is really the gateway to the Florida Keys”

Like Wyland's previous walls, the Key Largo mural is designed to motivate environmental awareness and stewardship, particularly in children.

Wyland, who began painting such "Whaling Walls" in 1981, plans to continue his series internationally until he has completed 100 murals. This one was his last planned for the United States.

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Marine life artist Wyland dedicated his final U.S. wall painting Monday in the Florida Keys. It’s his 95th such mural.

The panoramic 7,500-square-foot representation of the living coral reef that parallels the Keys features islands, manatees, manta rays, assorted indigenous fish and bottlenose dolphins. Wyland says he means to motivate.

“Art is something that can touch people’s emotion. And you can choose not to go into a gallery or a museum but you can’t ignore a giant mural like this. It demands attention. And if people see this beauty I know they’ll want to get involved in protecting it. It’s really the first step to conservation.”

During breaks from painting this month, Wyland painted separate canvases with kids, hoping to inspire youngsters to preserve the world’s oceans.

He intends to paint his last huge artwork, more than two miles long, in Beijing, with the help of children from around the world, prior to the 2008 summer Olympics.

A film produced for British television with chilling parallels to current events has its North American Premier Saturday on Sanibel. Wendy Humphrey reports.

A free concert, featuring marches of famed American composer John Philip Sousa, inaugurated a new million-dollar outdoor performing arts amphitheater in the Florida Keys last night. Sousa's great-grandson was there.

Festivities featured Keith Brion and his New Sousa Band at the TIB Amphitheater, at Islamorada’s Founders Park. John Philip Sousa IV narrated the concert.

"His marches are very patriotic and hopefully that will make his music timeless. His style was very disciplined. He was very disciplined in the way he wrote his music and in the way he managed his band. Young kids come up to me and go ‘wow’ , I didn’t know about this music,’ and some of them I know have downloaded Sousa music on their iPods.”

Born in 1854, John Philip Sousa is regarded as one of America’s most famous conductors in addition to being lauded as a composer. In 1987, Congress recognized “Stars and Stripes Forever” as the national march of the United States.

A cute fuzzy duckling might seem like a perfect Easter gift. But, if they outgrow their welcome releasing them into the wild may not be an option. That’s because it is illegal to release captive-reared mallard ducks into the wild. Mallards are the most common ducks sold as pets.
Once released, domesticated ducks can transmit diseases – and compete with native wildlife for food and habitat. Wildlife biologists are also concerned that mallards put Florida’s mottled duck population at risk. Florida Fish & Wildlife waterfowl research biologist - Ron Bielefeld says the pet mallards don’t know to leave the area when its wild counterparts do.

“The mallard is an exotic here in the summertime. It’s not a native breeding duck…we do get a few wild mallards that migrate down here in the wintertime…but generally they move back north to breed. So in the summertime the only mallard-type duck we have is the Florida mottled duck.”

Because the domesticated mallards don’t migrate, they’re crossbreeding with the mottled duck.
Bielefeld estimates as many as 12 percent of Florida’s mottled duck population shows genetic evidence of hybridization. That might mean eventual extinction. Mallards as pets are legal…but only with only a permit.