From freshwater lakes to our coastal seas, a rainbow of colors paints the Florida landscape. Scaling from single-celled organisms to 160 feet in length, algae can be the base of the food chain or coat our waterways in toxic slime. Here in Florida, our multicolored tapestry of algae blooms triggers many problems—driving away tourists, damaging …
As sea level rise slowly devours our tropical shores, development is threatening to erode South Florida’s trademark ecosystem: the Everglades. Over half the Everglades has been eaten up already, and if developers of South Florida had their way, soon the rest would be a mind-numbing sprawl of strip malls, eateries, and luxury apartments. The Everglades …
An invasion is slowly advancing toward Florida’s shores: a massive island of seaweed. Weighing over six tons, it’s the latest in a series of algae blooms to plague Florida. While mats of this smelly brown algae have blanketed the tropical shores of the Caribbean before, this year may be the biggest bloom yet—spanning over 5,000 …
Good news about the natural world doesn’t come every day. Fortunately, we have some springtime cheer to pass around. The wading bird nesting season in South Florida was exceptional in 2021. This flighted fauna produced nearly 102,000 nests, making it the second-largest nesting effort since surveys began in the mid-90s. Happily, due to ideal conditions, …
On a sultry summer night, 12 ships were heading to Spain laden with silver, gold, emeralds, and pearls. Just seven days after setting sail from Havana, Cuba they met a deadly obstacle, a hurricane. Eleven of the ships were lost, over 1,000 sailors perished, and much of the precious cargo sunk to the bottom of …