An effort launched to try to rescue a manatee spotted on a Mississippi River tributary near downtown Memphis, Tennessee was called off late Friday afternoon. The rescue team searched the area throughout the day on Thursday and Friday using boats, sonar equipment, and a helicopter, but did not have any luck locating the endangered animal. Biologists say it’s an unprecedented journey – at least in modern times. Fossil records show manatees once thrived far up the Mississippi River, well beyond Memphis, Tennessee. But now it’s rare to see them anywhere but Florida…especially during this time of the year. Save the Manatee Club’s Executive Director – Pat Rose – says while a manatee did make it all the way to Rhode Island a few months ago…this trip is far more surprising.

“Swimming that far up the Mississippi River is even more unusual. So its distance isn’t quite as great perhaps but that’s a major journey to go against the current and so forth and to be this far up. We don’t know of any other historical known event when a manatee has swam that far north up the Mississippi.”
Biologists are concerned because it’s in water that’s well-below 68-degrees…the temperature at which manatees begin suffering cold stress, which can kill them. It’s estimated the manatee swam more than 700 miles against the current and dodged busy boat traffic to reach the Memphis destination.

Rescuers have ended their search for a wayward manatee seen swimming in a tributary of the Mississippi River near downtown Memphis Tennessee last week. The Save the Manatee Club says the endangered animal couldn’t be found but that’s not unusual and they’ll be back if anyone see it again. In the winter months, manatees are found primarily in Florida. The club’s director Pat Rose says the semi-tropical species cannot usually tolerate water temperatures much lower than 68 degrees for long periods of time. The river was at 65 degrees Friday.

“When manatees are exposed to water below 68 degrees for an extended period of time they start suffering signs of cold stress and they’ll actually stop eating and their metabolic system and their digestive systems begin to shut down. And if they stay in too cold of water it can actually cause them to die ultimately.”

Water temperatures below 70 degrees usually cause manatees to move into warm water refuge areas such as natural springs or warm water effluents of power plants. A few manatees may range as far west as Texas and as far north as Virginia. One was even sighted as far north as Massachusetts this summer, but these sightings are rare.

Despite more than two-billion-dollars in losses from the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons…a new report finds ‘environmental horticulture’ continues to grow faster than all other agricultural industries in Florida. Plants you’d find at a garden center or nursery are the backbone of environmental horticulture. Add to that landscape design, installation and maintenance and you’ve got an industry that generates more jobs than any other segment of Ag in the Sunshine State…and more economic impact than all but Florida’s lumber industry. According to a new University of Florida survey, the economic impact from the industry grew at nearly 8-percent annually over the past 5 years to around 15-billion-dollars last year.
The study’s co-author, U-F researcher Alan Hodges, says big chain stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s have driven most of that growth.

“More than any other type of outlet they are the ones that have relentlessly driven down prices for plant products and made them much more affordable for the average person.”

Hodges says the trend is a mixed blessing for the industry…more customers, but much tighter competition. And while production costs are up, especially for fuel – he says the environmental horticulture industry in Florida shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

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You might think citrus is the Sunshine State’s biggest agricultural industry…but that’s not the case. It’s third - behind lumber and landscaping. And according to a new University of Florida survey, landscaping…or what’s called ‘environmental horticulture’…might someday be number one. Environmental horticulture includes everything from plants sold at nurseries to landscape design and maintenance. Last year it was worth more than 15-billion-dollars to Florida’s economy, and has grown faster than all other segments of agriculture in the state over the past 5 years. U-F agriculture researcher Alan Hodges says it may even represent the future...


“Eventually some of these other types of agriculture that depend on more extensive use of land are going to be diminished because of the competition for land by urban development. I mean there isn’t any part of agriculture that can compete with the kinds of land prices that developers are bidding these days.”

Hodges says environmental horticulture can co-exist with urban areas. The state’s biggest regions for the industry are Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa-St. Petersburg.

Ivory-billed woodpeckers were thought to be extinct until 2004 when a fleeting video image, shot in an Arkansas swamp, was made public. The search for more conclusive evidence brought wildlife biologists to the swampy forests of the Florida Panhandle where they say they saw the bird, but failed to photograph it. The search resumes in November – funded it part by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. FWC Biologist Karl Miller says a positive I.D. could have wide ranging benefits.

“The river systems in north Florida are extensive and fortunately so much of the wildlife habitat in the old growth swamp forests in our state is still intact in North Florida and I hope that it would help to get a little more attention on preserving and managing that habitat for all wildlife not just ivory-bills

The researcher team from Auburn University also says it found what look like ivory-bill nesting cavities in large trees. This nesting season cameras will be trained on those trees in hopes of capturing images of what some call “The Lord God Bird”.


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Wildlife Biologists from Auburn University published a report this week that they’ve seen, heard and found the probable nesting sites of ivory-billed woodpeckers in the Florida Panhandle. But they failed to get a photograph of the rare bird that some ornithologists fear is extinct. So the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is going to help – providing funding to help capture the ivory-bill’s image. FWC Biologist Karl Milller says camera’s will be trained on tree cavities that are probable nesting sites.

“They do plan use a lot of remote cameras that will record birds coming and going from cavities so that is part of their search plan, they also will have enough people working out in the field to spread out and hopefully cover the area pretty intensively and do a lot of watching waiting and listening.”

The last documented sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker was in 1944. A video image of 2004 sighting in Arkansas is still being disputed.

Wildlife officials say a sick loggerhead turtle rescued by Pasco County Sheriff’s marine officers Wednesday is likely a victim of Southwest Florida’s spreading red tide. There have been reports of fish kills along the beaches of Pinellas County in recent days. Bill Richardson – a red tide researcher with the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission says the persistent algal bloom is shifting to the north.


“It was first sighted in mid June down near the Caloosahatchee area – San Carlos bay - and it’s patchy in its distribution but I’ts been along the coast of Charlotte and Sarasota and then more recently has come up across the mouth of Tampa Bay near the Sky Way fishing pier.”

Richardson says there’s no way to predict when the red tide bloom will dissipate. He says if there’s lots of rainfall and then lots of fresh water flowing into Tampa Bay ‘that’ could impede its progress. The red tide organism that occurs in southwest Florida is stopped or slowed down when salinity decreases.

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Tropical Storm Florence is getting better organized but still poses no threat to Florida. But while tropical systems can do great harm, they can also do some good. Rainfall from the massive storms can relieve droughts. And as red-tide researchers have discovered tropical systems can also move the harmful algal blooms away from beaches, bays and inlets. Bill Richardson is a red tide researcher with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in St. Petersburg.

”If a hurricane came and its path was such that large volumes of water are transported offshore – say south away from the coast and there was a current red tide in those waters – the red tide would be transported out of that region and that’s one way red tide can dissipate”.

Researchers had predicted that Tropical Storm Ernesto last week might move Southwest Florida’s persistent red tide far away – but the storm lost its punch and the red tide remains. The good news? No hurricane clean-up. The bad news? Cleaning up dead fish.

Scientists are studying new algae that have turned up in San Carlos Bay and Pine Island Sound off Sanibel Island. It’s similar to a toxic algae found off the coast of Australia. It’s called Lyngbia and it’s under investigation by researchers at the Sanibel Captiva Conversation Foundation. It first turned up in December and it still persists. Lab Manager Dr. Steve Bortone says there’s a possibility contact with it could cause a rash called swimmers itch – but so far no cases have been reported. He says the primary concern is the impact on sea grasses.

In this particular case they’ve become so abundant they’ve covered over the blades of sea grass – and why that’s a problem is that they interfere with the light the sea-grasses can get and it turns out that blue green algae and sea grass require the same kind of light so it’s literally stealing the light from the sea grass.

Swimmers itch has been reported in Australia – but Bortone says it’s not the same algae. He says growth of blue-green algae is promoted by high nutrient levels.

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A new form of algae is now flourishing off Sanibel in San Carlos Bay and Pine Island Sound. The blue-green algae cling to sea-grasses – blocking the sun. Lab Manager at the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, Steve Bortone, says the persistent bloom is the result of poor water quality.

it’s a accumulation of a lot of issues, some stuff coming out of the lake, there’s probably some additions from the municipalities there’s septic areas where septic tanks may be overflowing in some cases. It might even be decomposition of materials left behind by the hurricane and those are rotting and putting their nutrients into the system –

Blue-green algae in Australia are toxic and causes swimmers itch, but Bortone says this variety doesn’t appear to do that. What it does do is coat the stems of sea-grass – blocking sunlight, potentially killing the grasses and leading to further deterioration of water quality.

Marine scientists are creating "test-tube coral babies," hoping offspring will take root to help restore part of a coral reef damaged by a ship grounding in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
A team of University of Miami marine science researchers, led by National Marine Fisheries Service ecologist Margaret Miller is collecting coral eggs and sperm this week during an annual reproductive ritual. Most corals in the Keys, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean release eggs and sperm into the water a few days after the full moon in August. In the wild, eggs and sperm randomly mix and fertilize to become coral larvae. Some of it takes root to serve as foundation blocks for new coral. Miller provides artificial labs on the backs of boats for the fertilization.

“In our case they’re doing it in a dish or in a cooler on the back of the boat and it’s a fairly labor intensive process over several days of changing their water essentially, siphoning off some of the waste products that are in the water and providing them fresh sea water sort of over the next week or so during this phase when they’re little blobs swimming around.”

Beginning this weekend, Miller's team plans to take the larvae to a 400-foot freighter that ran aground off Key Largo in 1984. The grounding destroyed nearly five thousand square feet of corals.
Using money from fines the ship's owners paid, much of the site was restored in 2002, but there has not been evidence of any hard coral growth.

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Marine scientists hope "test-tube coral babies" will take root to help restore a tract of reef ravaged by a 1984 ship grounding off the Florida Keys. This week a team of University of Miami marine science researchers is collecting coral eggs and sperm during an annual
reproductive ritual, dubbed “coral spawning”. National Marine Fisheries Service ecologist Margaret Miller explains what happens next.

“We will be taking these coral larvae of reef building coral species, enclosing them around some of these limestone artificial structures that were built back in that area in the hopes that they will be able to settle and indeed return to being a coral reef in that area as opposed to some limestone structures.”

Looking like an upside-down, underwater snowstorm, most corals in the Keys, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean release eggs and sperm a few days after the full moon in August. In the wild, eggs and sperm randomly mix and fertilize to become larvae. Some take root to become foundation blocks for new coral.

Cayo Costa is a throwback to Florida’s past. The barrier island, north of Captiva, has a seven-mile strip of sandy white beach accessible only by boat. Most of the island is a state park and officials are trying to maintain its natural habitat. Their job is made harder because of a population of feral pigs. For years, the state has trapped and killed the hogs. Recently, a few pigs attacked beachgoers and now officials are struggling to keep Cayo Costa’s pig population under control under increasing public scrutiny. W-G-C-U’s Valerie Alker has the story.

Red tide continues to linger off the Southwest Florida coast with outbreaks just offshore in Collier, Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota Counties. Red tide is a naturally-occurring algae that kills birds, fish, manatees and causes breathing problems in humans. The noxious fumes drive people away from the beach and hurts tourism. Fort Myers Congressman Connie Mack says the government needs to create a red tide clearinghouse so that research funding is handed out and tracked better.

“There’s only so much money out there and there’s a lot of duplication. And I think we would be much better off and we’d be much closer to solutions if we used a process that went in that direction.”

Mack said scientists would review all of the red tide funding requests and give money to those that show the most promise. He says several federal agencies including NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could easily oversee the project.

While Tropical Storm Alberto brought southwest Florida much needed rain, it also wreaked havoc on some area wildlife- the storm destroyed numerous sea turtle nests on the gulf coast. WGCU’s Heather Caputo reports.

A team from the University of North Carolina and Mote Marine Lab is back in Sarasota Bay continuing a three-year study of the bottlenose dolphins that call the area home. They really want to know if the dolphins actually do call the area something like our word for home. They’ve already proven the animals recognize their own names – a signature whistle unique to each dolphin.
Biology Layla Sighig says the study is a small piece in understanding how dolphins talk with one another and what it means.

“The fact that we found that they do use these arbitrary symbols to represent other animals implies that they have perhaps mental images of these animals or in some way or form concepts of these other animals.”

Sighig used natural recordings of signal whistles from other familiar dolphins to measure the responses. And to ensure the dolphins were not just responding to a known voice, they used computer-generated signals. In both instances, the dolphins turned around as if to ask, "Are you talking to me?"

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A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina and Mote Marine lab are conducting experiments with dolphins in Sarasota Bay this month. They’ll spend about two weeks studying if the dolphins respond to signals besides their names. Their names are whistles unique to each animal. Researcher Layla SEYE-ig has been working with this pod for 20 years.

“My overall interest is really trying to understand the natural communicational system of dolphins. There could be relevance in terms of understand more about human language I suppose if we do find more parallels with our own language system in dolphins it might help to understand evolutionary forces that have driven the development of these types of communication systems in different animals.”

They plan to play random recorded signals and monitor the dolphins' reactions. SEYE-ig says the research could give scientists clues if dolphins relay messages of stress, unhappiness or have conversations. But that type of information could require several more years of study.