Four Tampa Bay marinas have signed up to support a national initiative that discourages the landing of sharks.
They include Largo Intercoastal Marina, Loggerhead Club and Marina in St. Petersburg, Longboat Key Club Moorings and the Anclote Island Marina.
Around the world, sharks are being killed at an unsustainable rate, according to a study by Imperial College, London, which estimated that up to 73 million shark fins per year are harvested for shark fin soup. Closer to home, the U.S. government estimates that recreational fishing kills an average of more than 200,000 sharks per year along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.
"Many shark species have declined because of overfishing, which recreational fishing has contributed to in the U.S.," notes Robert Hueter, director of Mote Marine Laboratory's Center for Shark Research. "Sustaining these species is in the interest of recreational anglers as well as marine conservationists."
The Shark-Free Marinas Initiative (SFMI) has organized as a cooperative by the Pegasus Foundation, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and The Humane Society of the United States, with support from Mote, the Pew Environment Group, Fishpond USA and the Fisheries Conservation Foundation.
"There is no state more important to the success of this initiative in the United States than Florida, the sport-fishing capital of the world," says Luke Tipple, managing director of the SFMI. "Because of the number of shark species off Florida, and the sheer number of nursery grounds and migratory routes located there, protecting Florida's sharks is critical to maintaining the health of Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico waters."
University of Florida researchers, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, report that a single dose of an immunocontraceptive vaccine controls fertility over multiple years in adult female cats.
The scientists hope their findings will aid in the registration and use of the vaccine, called GonaCon, to help manage overabundant feral cat populations humanely.
Cats, particularly feral cats, kill an estimated 480 million birds in the U.S. each year, making them a leading cause of avian death in many communities.
"Millions of free-roaming feral cats exist in the United States and in other countries around the world," said Julie Levy, the lead researcher and director of the Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program at UF. "Unfortunately, their welfare is not always adequate, and they can have a negative impact on public health and the environment."
The vaccine is currently registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for use on female white-tailed deer; however, it has also proved successful with numerous other mammal species including feral horses, bison, elk, prairie dogs and ground squirrels.
"We're hoping this research will lead to a nonlethal method of control for feral cat populations that is less expensive, labor-intensive, and invasive than current methods, such as surgical sterilization," Levy said.
Funded by Morris Animal Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advances veterinary research to protect, treat and cure animals, the five-year study was published in August online in the scientific journal Theriogenology.
A long-term study at the University of Georgia looking at how changing nutrient inputs to streams affects forest-dwelling organisms has yielded surprising results. Although higher levels of nutrients increased the number of aquatic insects, streamside predators that depend upon them as a food source did not benefit. In fact, they received significantly less nutrition from aquatic sources than did their counterparts at a similar unenriched stream nearby.
An earlier study had demonstrated that high levels of nutrients allowed many aquatic insects to grow to their maximum size. In-stream predators were generally unable to consume these larger insects so researchers predicted that terrestrial predators such as spiders would be able to take advantage of this increased source of nutrition.
"We didn't expect what we found," said Amy Rosemond, an associate professor of ecology. Most spiders—even those that specialize in preying on stream insects—were receiving less nutrition from aquatic sources at the enriched stream than were those at streams without added nutrients. And rather than increasing, populations of spiders were the same or even smaller at the enriched stream.
The researchers suspect that, as with instream predators, the larger insects were difficult for the spiders to consume.
"In the last ten years we've started to understand how much stream ecosystems depend on forest ecosystems and vice versa," Rosemond added. "This is the first study to show how nutrient enrichment affects subsidies from streams back to forests."
A regional consortium of partners, led by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, is vying for a $4-million grant to advance implementation of the ONE BAY regional shared planning vision.
More than half of the funding would cover efforts aimed at uniting the community by revitalizing and strengthening transportation corridors and connecting neighborhoods to spur regional transit-oriented development (TOD). The grant would provide implementation of catalyst projects such as the SR54/56 Corridor Plan; Wesley Chapel Targeted Growth and TOD initiative; University District revitalization; Clearwater Downtown Transit Station Area Plan; Gateway Business District Plan; East Lealman Community Revitalization Plan; St. Petersburg Transit Station Plan; Sarasota and Manatee TOD Plans; and an update of the countywide plan for Pinellas County.
Funding will also be used to integrate the regional vision into the Strategic Regional Policy Plan, conduct a transportation listening tour and other public engagement efforts. Grant winners will be announced by the end of the year.
For more information on the ONE BAY vision, see Bay Soundings Winter 2009.
From a speeding car on busy Gandy Boulevard, it's difficult to imagine that the narrow causeway leading to the bridge could be an important spot for migrating birds. As other beaches are built over, however, it's become so significant that the Florida Department of Transportation has placed concrete barriers to block off the southeast corner to cars.
The recommendation to close the beach to motorized vehicles came from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) at the urging of the Suncoast Shorebird Partnership that provided data from 2008-2010.
"The portion of the beach next to the radio tower is an important staging area for feeding and migrating shorebirds and seabirds. Places where these birds can safely forage and rest are becoming scarcer - a contributing factor to the decline of some species," said Nancy Douglass, biological supervisor for the FWC.