Tom Bayles
WGCU Environmental ReporterTom Bayles is WGCU's Senior Environmental Reporter and a 25-year veteran journalist in Florida. Before his tenure at WGCU Public Media, he worked for The New York Times Co. in Sarasota, the Associated Press in Miami and Tallahassee, and the Tampa Bay Times in Clearwater. He earned a master's in journalism and a bachelor's in education, both from the University of South Florida. The proud father of three sons, Bayles spends his free time fishing along the Southwest Florida coast in his 20-foot Aquasport with his Whippet pup, Spencer.
Bayles’ top awards include the Gold Medal for Public Service for Investigative Reporting from the Florida Society of News Editors, the Waldo Proffitt Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism in Florida, and being named the Sunshine State’s top environmental journalist by the Florida Press Club and FSNE. Bayles has been nominated four times for a Pulitzer Prize.
Email: tbayles@wgcu.org
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It’s the first week of sea turtle nesting season in Southwest Florida, and this year the thousands of loggerheads and greens that nest on our beaches have a new ally in nine-year-old entrepreneur Naomi Haynam. The Cape Coral pre-teen so loves sea turtles she’s making beach-themed earrings and selling them at home, online, and in parks to raise money to donate to volunteer sea turtle protection groups. -
Joe Cavanaugh, the Calusa Waterkeeper hired last May, is no longer with the organization. Calusa Waterkeeper is a nonprofit that works to protect and restore the Caloosahatchee River from Lake Okeechobee to the coastal waters of Lee County. -
When hatchlings go the wrong way, it's almost kindly called a "disorientation." But the fact is, nearly every time they perish headed in the wrong direction, it's a preventable death sentence. Nowhere in Southwest Florida is it worse than on Fort Myers Beach. Even town officials admit it, working hard for that to change. -
There have been four wildfires in six weeks within the Collier County portion of the Everglades. The 1,700-acre Newman Fire, near the Picayune State Forest, and the 41-acre Jetport fire, about five miles from the federal detention facility Alligator Alcatraz, are both at least 75 percent contained. Another two are over. -
The Newman Fire, which broke out in east Naples along the Picayune State Forest this week, was the third of four notable wildfires in the Western Everglades over the last six weeks. -
Washington is funneling more than $2 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers' Jacksonville office to speed up completion of a massive reservoir being built south of Lake Okeechobee by more than five years. -
A 1,733-acre wildfire was being fought in the Picayune Strand State Forest in Collier County Monday afternoon. The fire was south of Alligator Alley and prompted a warning from the Florida Highway Patrol. -
Captiva Island residents have been urged to allow free removal of Australian pines and green iguanas through a grant from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission -
Despite rains that extremely dry ground siphoned up almost as soon as it fell Thursday, Friday and Saturday, several brush fires still managed to erupt across the area. The largest is in the Big Cypress National Preserve, in an area north of I-75. -
Pre-season predictions on the number of hurricanes that will make landfall in Florida this year are certain to differ among the leading tropical storm forecasters, figures that get refined and reissued as the season unfolds. One thing that will now be a constant is the National Hurricane Center’s addition of more watches and warnings on its familiar “cone of uncertainty,” which has been used for more than two decades. It's a teardrop-shaped offering of the most educated guesses available about the direction of a hurricane over its next few days.
