From the Headlines...

Feebee

Loggerhead Release Provides Valuable Tracking Data

Dr. Kirt Rusenko and staff from Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton will release two juvenile loggerhead sea turtles raised in captivity into the Indian River Lagoon near Sebastian Inlet. Dubbed Milton and FeeBee, the turtles hatched on Florida beaches in 2002. The pair will be satellite tagged by Dr. Kate Mansfield of UM’s Rosenstiel School to see if the turtles behave differently than wild turtles. Read more…

jewfish

High Tech Help To Protect Endangered Goliath Grouper

Ocean Research & Conservation Association (ORCA) and its collaborators announced the world’s first use of an acoustic underwater camera to survey juveniles of goliath grouper in mangrove habitats. This species is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. The largest grouper fish in the Atlantic Ocean, juveniles spend almost the first decade of their lives in red mangrove nurseries. ORCA scientist Dr. Sarah Frias-Torres and colleagues at UM Rosenstiel successfully demonstrated how this camera system, originally developed for the U.S. Department of Defense, can be used to conduct visual underwater surveys to evaluate the recovery/decline of the species. Read more…