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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Sea turtles had a much better nesting season this year on Keewaydin Island than in 2024. The Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s sea turtle research team counted 558 nests all loggerhead nests except three from green turtles. This year, more than 38,000 hatchlings made it. -
SWFL’s population continues to boom with Charlotte County seeing a nearly 19% increase in new residents since 2020. One of the struggles the region is facing is access to clean water. -
The Burnt Store Water Treatment and Reclamation Facility, which offers free tours to the public on a regular basis so people have a more thorough understand of what happens there -
The remote-controlled “Robobunny” is designed to lure the stealthy Burmese python out of hiding so trappers can pounce. Burmese pythons have been slithering, eating, and reproducing throughout the Everglades since at least 1979. -
The University of Florida’s Plant Diagnostic Center recently received significant acknowledgement as the first university-based lab in the nation to earn accreditation from the National Plant Diagnostic Network. -
The state has purchased more than 20,000 acres of land in Central and South Florida to protect it from development, and most of the 31 square miles of mainly agricultural land was put into the public’s trust are within Collier and Hendry counties -
The Everglades Foundation has developed an early-warning system for red tide blooms in Southwest Florida, which has been able to forecast dangerous outbreaks of Karenia brevis with up to 84 percent accuracy. -
Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a destination for the environmentally excitable whether to see the super ghost orchid in bloom or the ancent bald cypress trees. This month the sanctuary's endless fields of sunflowers are in bloom. -
Peaking during weeks like this one in September and October songbirds stream south on overnight flights, shorebirds and raptors move by day, and waterfowl build up on wetlands as freezes creep south. South Florida is the winter destination for some; for others, it's a stopover on the way to the Caribbean and South America. -
Drought is the third-costliest natural disaster in the country, and goverment scientists just reported in an academic journal the natural disaster is poised to get worse
