ARCADIA, FLORIDA – On a moonless night in mid-October, Wayne Nichols, 42, lit a cigarette and climbed up to the captain’s seat of a splatter-painted skiff. He eased the boat into the middle of a nameless canal somewhere between Sebring and Lake Placid, in south-central Florida. His clients, Pat Hopkins, 66, and her son Melvin […]
Tag: florida
POLL: Should the trapping and “ranching” of chameleons be banned?
Armed with a flashlight on a backroad in Florida, Hillary Dupont-Joyce is on the hunt. Her target is a master of disguise, but a flash of light can make it stick out among the dark trees. She scans her light along a thicket. Suddenly, her trained eye spots the prize: a sleeping chameleon. Dupont-Joyce is […]
Wildlife advocates win! No Florida bear hunt for at least 2 years
If you’ve ever wondered whether public outcry really has any effect, look no further than Florida. Based almost solely on public pressure, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) decided this week against authorizing a black bear hunt in 2017 or 2018. Wildlife advocates are extremely happy with the news. Hunters, not so much. […]
South to North
Thank you for your interest in this blog. There will be a brief suspension of its publication during a long distance move with future reports from southern New England and beyond anticipated to be presented randomly. A pair of latent posts from Florida are expected as well.
Let It Snowy
As the temperature and humidity this week reached its Summer peak (hopefully), it was an easy decision to review images of Snowy Egrets captured at Siesta Key Beach in June. The Snowy Egrets stole the show with their acrobatic performance at the Access #5 tidal pool. As I recall, they didn’t have significant competition from […]
POLL: Should bear hunting in Florida be kept on hold?
In the age of the Anthropocene, is it really possible, long-term, to sustain growing numbers of human beings and wildlife predators on landscapes already crowded—and likely to be left literally shrunken in decades ahead by climate change? The experiment is now playing out across the peninsula of Florida, the third most populous state in America. […]
Florida June Flashbacks: 2011- 2015
With plenty of indoor time available due to Tropical Storm Colin and a persistent stormy weather pattern this past week in Southwest Florida, I made flashbacks of June visits to five different wildlife venues going back to 2011. The Ruddy Turnstone above (image 1) was photographed at Little Estero Lagoon in […]
Deadly Brain Disease Is Driving Swamp Birds Insane
It’s not easy to make a living as a bird of prey, especially if you’re a Florida snail kite. Once at risk of starvation due to declines in its favored prey, the endangered bird is now facing a terrifying threat: a deadly disease that drives birds insane. True to its name, the foot-long snail kite […]