#Deceased manatee photo

[jackalspine]

Giant otter shrew

Potamogale velox

Genus Potamogale, subfamily Potamogalinae, family Tenrecidae, suborder Tenrecomorpha

Despite their names, they are neither otters nor shrews. They are afrotherians like elephants, hyraxes, aardvarks, and manatees.

They live here:

They are nocturnal and can not survive in captivity. Most photos online of them are recently deceased or taxidermied because of this.

They don’t have webbed feet, so they swim side to side like crocodilians or fish. Their hind legs have skin flaps along the inside that let them be held close to the body while swimming

Wait can you elaborate on that last part what do the skin flaps do?? Ho w wo oh ok Neve round I think I get it is it like how the fuckin the wheels on the airplane go into the plane when they’re in the air?? Like that? Bro that’s so funny

But man that’s really cool do u have sources for the illustrated pics? I wanna look attm

[jthurlow]

A Picture Speaks a 1000 Words

A Picture Speaks a 1000 Words

-Martin County Manatee educational sign in the IRL at Joe’s Point Understandably, many are concerned about manatees. Today, I share the most recent 12/29/21 Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) video update by Dr Tom Reinard. Please click on below. 12/29/21 FWC MANATEE MORTALITY EVENT and FEEDING UPDATE This FWC site is updated weekly, and previous updates are available. Here one can view the…

[naturecoaster]

Help Feed the Manatees with Manatee Munchies during Manatee Awareness Month

November is Manatee Awareness Month, bringing to light the ongoing, multifaceted investigations of the unique mortality events of manatees. Thus far, 718 deceased manatees were discovered throughout the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts in 2022, spiking the rates to numbers last seen in 2018. Fortunately, manatee mortality rates are down from 2021. Despite devastating statewide numbers, manatees continue to return in droves to Crystal River each year, with mortality rates dropping significantly in this area, according to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission (FWC). Save Crystal River is a grass-roots nonprofit organization that has spent the last ten years rehabilitating the waters of Crystal River through removing harmful algae and debris and planting and protecting eelgrass, which is the primary food source for manatees. Manatees are 800 to 1,000-pound herbivores that consume large percentages of their body weight in aquatic vegetation daily. The average manatee consumes over 100 lbs. of seagrass daily. Manatees gather at Crystal River during the cold weather (Nov-March). Photo by Sally White November is Manatee Awareness Month November is Manatee Awareness Month, dedicated annually to manatees and their conservation in Florida. Bob Graham, a former Governor of Florida, first declared November as Manatee Awareness Month in 1979, when manatee protection zones were first designated in areas where manatees gather during the winter. November is typically when manatees return to Florida’s warmer waters from their summer migratory routes. In honor of Manatee Awareness Month, and to continue to support the thriving conditions in Crystal River, Save Crystal River has created some unique opportunities for people to make a direct difference in changing the future. Manatee Munchies Program Save Crystal River has created Manatee Munchies Lunchboxes to feed the manatees during Manatee Awareness Month! When people purchase one of these delectable donations, such as a Sea Cow Snack for $25, a Manatee Munchie Lunchie for $50, or The Hungry Man-atee Meal for $100, all donations will go toward restoring, protecting, and saving Crystal River. Donations of any monetary amount may always be made here. Manatee Munchies are gathered without disrupting the planted eelgrass in Crystal River. This is because eelgrass sheds its leaves seasonally, like deciduous trees do. Boat propellers can also “cut” the grass when their blades are not properly raised. These cuttings can be collected as well to feed manatees. To gather the shed eelgrass leaves, a surface skimmer traverses the waters of Crystal River and collects the grasses to repurpose in feeding manatees. The shed grass “clippings” are sent to rehabilitation facilities to provide a natural food source to manatees in captivity. This makes it easier for rehabilitated manatees to reacclimate when they return to the wild, increasing their odds of survival. In addition, seagrass plants that are accidentally unearthed from the roots are collected and used in education programs for schools. This teaches future generations about the valuable role seagrass and eelgrass play in the environmental continuum. Manatee munching on the rich eelgrass beds in Crystal River by Taylor at Hunter Springs Kayaks. “Manatee Munchie Lunchboxes and Manatee Fever are programs where every dollar and person can make a difference! We want to expand on the success of the current project so we may restore all 600 acres of Kings Bay and Crystal River for generations to come,” said Lisa Moore, president of Save Crystal River. Create Your Own Manatee Another way to fund these important environmental programs includes being a part of the history of Crystal River. Manatee Fever is an art movement created by Save Crystal River, where consumers may take part in water rehabilitation and manatee feeding efforts, by creating their very own custom-designed art sculpture manatee. Manatee statues that are located around Crystal River as part of the Manatee Fever movement include Elvis, Fat Boy, Faye, and Pete. Images courtesy of Save Crystal River. Corporations, private donors, or individuals may sponsor a manatee sculpture, which stands over five feet tall, then select an artist to paint it and take part in the design inspiration process. All designs must be approved by the Save Crystal River Board of Directors. The personalized, unique masterpieces include the buyer or company’s own style and signature, inclusive of their signature or logo attached to the statue on a plaque. These exclusive figures are displayed around the City of Crystal River, or at a location selected by the sponsor. The commemorative manatee art sculptures are offered for a limited time. A map of all manatee art sculptures will be created for the 100th anniversary of Crystal River in July 2023. All proceeds from the art installations are used to restore and protect the beauty and health of Crystal River for generations to come. To learn more about the program and to become a sponsor, please inquire via email to info@savecrystalriver.org. About Save Crystal River In 2012 Save Crystal River was formed by a group of leaders in Crystal River, Florida, known as the “Home of the Manatees.” The organizers noticed the damage that elements and pollution were doing to the waterways and committed to restore and protect the beauty and health of Crystal River and Florida’s waterways for future generations. https://youtu.be/y9aidBDuucY?list=TLGGCPjuTP3FQVYwOTExMjAyMg With support from government leaders and community donations, and in partnership with aquatic restoration specialists Sea & Shoreline, suffocating Lyngbya is vacuumed out and eelgrass is planted and nurtured. Now, shedding grasses are collected to feed manatees in captivity. Save Crystal River is on-track to restore 92 acres of Kings Bay by July 2023, which is the Centennial Anniversary of the City of Crystal River! With over 70 acres of the river rehabilitated and 808 spring vents unclogged, the efforts and success are visible in the clarity of the water, the number of manatees returning ‘home’ every season and the increase in opportunities for anglers and tourism. To support the continuation of this 600-acre project, rehabilitating Florida’s waterways, and Saving Crystal River, please visit savecrystalriver.com Read the full article

[ncfcatalyst]

Hunter Osking experiencing the digitalized reality of his work-in-progress game “Flowers for Dan Dan” using the HTC Vive.

A close-up image of a portrait of Dan Dan (Osking’s actual, recently deceased, dog) found in the living room setting you can go through in the game.

  New College has seen an introduction of virtual reality (VR) in the past, with a student incorporating it in their thesis a few years back. Now the modern phenomena has drawn interest for Computer Science Area of Concentration (AOC) thesis student Hunter Osking, Professor of Anthropology, Uzi Baram, and a number of students who have joined the first ever “Virtual Reality Community Project” tutorial.

A new VR Lab in the Jane Bancroft Cook Library was established only a month ago and will first be used in an effort to remodel the historical Charles Ringling Mansion, commonly referred to as College Hall, showing a bright future for New College’s possibilities.

Alum Alexis Santos (‘12) worked on his thesis with Baram, which involved creating an archaeologically relevant smartphone app that allows the user to view what a landscape looked like in the past, like time travelling vision.

“He had done a project on a little town on the Manatee River that’s no longer there,” Baram said. “It does a neat thing where you look through the lens of your phone’s camera and you see the historical photo.”

Due to this thesis work, Baram was enlightened on the matter of VR, then began using the technology in his own research projects afterwards. Baram and a VR-savvy team worked together recently in remodeling Fort Gadsden, renamed Prospect Bluff, that’s found near the Apalachicola River and was hardly heard of beforehand.

“I was trying to get students to work with it [VR], but I wasn’t having much luck until Hunter contacted me,” Baram said.

A music festival is where Osking first encountered VR, at a VR booth in which the man stationed there convinced Osking to learn VR for the possibility of being hired. Since then, Osking has been dead set on VR, but even better, he believes in augmented reality (AR).

“I want to get a HoloLens… but it costs a lot of money,” Osking said. “That’s the future for sure.”

Instead of covering one’s entire field of vision, AR adds to one’s perception. Microsoft’s HoloLens creates holograms into one’s reality, which is why it’s considered a “mixed reality” of sorts. However, with the funding available, VR is the greatest possibility for Osking and New College at the moment and a lot of work can be done with it.

Baram, having studied the historic architecture of the Charles Ringling Mansion–built in the 1920’s–thought what better opportunity to work with VR than the historical building we have access to right on campus.

“It’s [College Hall] on-campus, easy access, it’s a historic building… and it’s big. There’s actually a lot to do here,” Baram said. “I think once we have the VR people will actually be really interested. It has that wow factor to it.”

The community project tutorial is currently underway as a second module tutorial with only a few students registered for it. Each student is expected to complete three online tutorials to practice the basics of VR, as well as two renditions of College Hall by the end of the semester. So, five VR products in total. Overall, the community project is aimed towards inciting interest in not only the importance of College Hall–in many regards–but also for VR in general.

“To kind of have a multi-year project, we’ll have lots of students get the opportunity to actually do the documentation of a place using the newest technologies,” Baram said.

The remodeling will be based on the earliest documents New College has access to, the archives from when the mansion was purchased back in 1960. The group hasn’t yet decided on exactly what version of the mansion will be replicated, but it will be of what College Hall may have looked like, as accurately as possible, when it was a library for the school.

“We don’t have the original blueprints for the building. The earliest is from the 1960’s, but that’s something,” Baram said.

The VR equipment was purchased thanks to funding from the College Art Association (CAA), which granted Osking $1,500 toward the end of the spring 2016 semester. Sitting in the VR Lab, now located by the Quantitative Resource Center (QRC) and the Media Lab, is the HTC Vive, which includes a headset that uses “room-scale” tracking technology and large motion-tracked handheld controllers. The program run for VR projects is Unreal Engine 4, a well-known, recently developed gaming engine. Osking is currently the only individual with full access to the VR Lab, but is eager to have anyone interested contact him for the space’s use. He has even purchased interesting VR games that will be available in the VR Lab, such as “Superhot” where time moves when the player physically moves.

“For my thesis I’m making a game and I’ll be testing out the voice recognition mechanic of it,” Osking said.

Specifically, the player in “Flowers for Dan Dan,” Osking’s thesis game, would have to read dialogue options aloud for a more submersible experience. “Dandy”–“Dan Dan” being a nickname–is the name of Osking’s actual pet dog that recently passed away and the game revolves around this tragedy in a regular house setting. The game would be created using the same technology used for remodeling College Hall virtually.

“Ultimately, I think it’s [VR] both a good example of what New College students could do and it makes New College more appealing to people. So, I think it works in both directions,” Baram said. “I think it’s a real credit to the library that they willing to do that [allow space for VR Lab]. I’m really pleased with the students who signed up and I’m really happy with Hunter showing such great leadership.”

VR is seemingly sweeping the world and endeavors such as these within our own community are showing the potential for further projects and opportunities. Students will increasingly start to include VR into their class assignments, Independent Study Projects (ISPs) and theses as time passes and as resources multiply in coming years.

Remodeling College Hall in virtual reality New College has seen an introduction of virtual reality (VR) in the past, with a student incorporating it in their thesis a few years back.

[ybohadi]

UF Stranding Biologist - Marine Animal Rescue Program

The University of Florida Marine Animal Rescue Program (UF MAR) is seeking a full time Marine Animal Stranding Biologist for stranding response and recovery in Levy, Taylor, and Dixie counties. The Stranding Biologist, along with UF Marine Animal Rescue veterinarians and staff, will respond to sick, injured, or deceased marine mammals and sea turtles, as the primary coverage staff member. The Stranding Biologist will be stationed in a guest office in the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge in Chiefland, FL, interact closely with the refuge personnel, and must be willing to live near the coast. The Stranding Biologist is supported by faculty and staff at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine (UF CVM) and Aquatic Animal Health Program volunteers and will report directly to the faculty principal investigators as their main supervisors. The Stranding Biologist will also work in partnership with the UF/IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station and the Cedar Key Dolphin Project, as !

well as a host of other close partners. The successful applicant will continue to build the fairly new stranding program with volunteers, local personnel, training and public education. The position's responsibilities will be based initially on the experience of the applicant hired and additional training will be provided where necessary. Additionally, this position is funded by a grant received from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) as part of the (NOAA NMFS) Southeast Stranding Network under the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.

The Stranding Biologist will be responsible for the following:

* Coordinate stranding response, recovery and reports of cetaceans, manatees, and sea turtles within the designated response area.

* Organize and oversee the daily operations of the stranding program including, but not limited to monitoring and response to stranding calls and adhering to local and national laws and policies regarding protected species and habitats.

* Collect data and complete required documentations (e.g. 24-hour report, Level A Data, Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network Report (STSSN)) for all stranded animals and complete required reporting to databases including GulfMAP and FWC's STSSN.

* Develop and submit quarterly program activity reports and budget reimbursement requests to the NFWF coordinator of the grant

* Coordinate and conduct or assist veterinarian in necropsies both in the field and at UF CVM, including coordinating the disposal of carcasses and waste materials.

* Maintain inventory database for all samples and marine mammal parts in conjunction with UF CVM staff and proper NMFS, USFWS, and FWC permitting regulations.

* Maintain equipment, vehicle, and vessel as well as required logs for vehicle usage.

* Develop and maintain a volunteer, partner, and public outreach network to assist in stranding response, public support, and necropsy.

* Coordinate UFMAR's involvement in public outreach events, including organizing attendance at festivals, scheduling lectures, and developing school programs to increase awareness of the program and the species involved.

* Conduct workshops and trainings for stranding program volunteers in conjunction with the PI, UF CVM faculty and staff.

* Ensure adequate safety training and PPE for all volunteers, staff, and faculty for all procedures involved in stranding response and necropsy, including, but not limited to: hazardous and biological waste training, boating safety, animal handling, and zoonotic disease prevention after completing University training in these areas.

* Assist in grant writing and development activities.

* Assist and participate with research projects related to stranding events, local population studies with program participants and pursue drone certification with UF for field use.

* When not engaged in primary stranding efforts, biologist can assist program partners such as the Cedar Key Dolphin Project(Dolphin Population Research) or Nature Coast Biological Station with local research

* Work with program PI, faculty and staff to continue to enhance the stranding response in a not previously covered and challenging environment

Applicants should possess or develop the following qualifications:

* Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and related software programs, preferably including Microsoft Access.

* Excellent organizational skills and the ability to work independently.

* Excellent interpersonal skills to foster and maintain a professional network of partners, volunteers, and supporters.

* Flexibility with regards to scheduling to accommodate the unpredictable nature of stranding response and requirement of 24/7 on-call status.

* High level interpersonal communication skills.

* Relevant experience in marine mammal stranding and necropsy (may be a combination of paid and unpaid work).

* Ability to lift and carry 50 lbs. unassisted after proper training.

* Ability to drive a large truck and boat including ability to trailer and tow vessel.

* Ability to work under harsh weather conditions.

* Grant writing skills are highly desirable.

Pay range: $15.00 to $17.00 per hour

This is a full time OPS position. Employees are eligible to receive benefits including health, eye, and dental insurance.

Minimum Requirements: Bachelor's degree in appropriate area of specialization and experience with stranding work (Cetaceans, manatees, and sea turtles).

Preferred Qualifications: Experience in stranding program(s) and procedures. Team based work ethic and leadership capabilities. CPR and first aid certifications. Experience with dolphin photo ID.

Applications for the position should include the following: CV/Resume, Cover letter, letters of reference from three individuals (preferably involved in the stranding field) including full contact information. Please send materials to Mike Walsh walshm@ufl.edu<mailto:walshm@ufl.edu> and Laurie Adler ladler1@ufl.edu<mailto:ladler1@ufl.edu>.

Application deadline: January 23rd, 2020 by 6:00pm

[micaramel]

Artist: Max Hooper Schneider

Venue: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Date: September 21 – February 2, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release, and link available after the jump.

  Images:

Images courtesy of High Art, Paris and Maureen Paley, London. Photos by Jeff McLane.

Press Release:

While for the moment, the fates of human and non-human beings are inextricably entangled, the power of humans is waning. We arrived late on the planet and are likely to exit early.

—Max Hooper Schneider

A mad scientist, magician, alchemist, trash master, doomsday predictor, and borderline hoarder, Max Hooper Schneider has spent the past decade developing a taxonomy of living things, dead technology, and refuse, transforming grotesque souvenirs of everyday life into exquisite objects and environments. His passions for the nonhuman world and marine biology fuel his explorations of the often tragic results of humanity’s interference with the natural world. The results are visceral scenarios reflecting on the nature of existence and environmental crises. Ostranenie—the artistic technique of presenting common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar—and techne—the ancient precept of material making—anchor Hooper Schneider’s approach to art making.

Hooper Schneider studied landscape architecture and marine biology in college, which provided access to facilities and labs where he could blow things up, cultivate glowing algae, and explore the habits and habitats of a plethora of specimens and exotic materials. Accordingly, research is central to his process, and his overflowing studio— Little Shop of Horrors meets a secondhand shop—functions like a laboratory where he can conduct off-label experiments and develop bootleg ecosystems. He is an incessant scavenger, trolling dumpsters, the beach, scrap-metal yards, anatomical replica companies, and the coffers of deceased relatives for discarded treasures. His vast collection of raw materials includes neon, bones (real and fake), scrap metal, sea creatures (also both real and fabricated), vintage toys, mannequins, junk jewelry, real and artificial plants, candy, fossils, death metal cassettes, discarded furniture, movie props, and more. He was, and still is, fascinated by tide pools and spent most of his free time observing these discrete worlds, which for the artist “represented something larger than myself . . . that exceeded my anthropocentric, postulatory thumbings at the ‘natural world.’ . . . One could witness this multidimensional play of habitat creation and destruction, mutualistic partnerships, sieges of elemental forces, and peer into a phantasmagorical, subplanar vista of tube feet, stinging tentacles, and regenerated limbs.”1

One might not immediately associate Hooper Schneider with Marcel Duchamp, the godfather of postmodern art. His primary medium, however, is in fact found objects. He transforms and redigests existing materials (and occasionally organisms), or in his words, “my day job is to package gore.”2 For Aral Spring Trolley (2014), he turned a classic popcorn trolley into an aquarium for popcorn- shaped snails, and for Antemortem Sirenian (2018), the artist sliced open an animatronic manatee, exposing the fictive guts—sinewy wires and electrical cables. Hooper Schneider doesn’t just recontextualize found materials and objects; he treats them as ingredients in a recipe in which he creates something entirely new without concealing their original use or function. He humanizes (or more accurately animalizes) machines and human-made objects, exposing distinct biological characteristics. And as Barbara Hooper observes, “his worlds do not represent nature: They are nature. . . . Of course, lobsters, fish, seahorses, spiny urchins. But boots, bullet casings, plastic chains? The works, if they are functioning as the artist would like them to, have opened at least this one small aporia, an aporia being, literally, something that stops you in your tracks.”

While the subjects of Hooper Schneider’s works can be somewhat dismal, every doomsday diorama features elements of delight and wonder. His poignant and magical assemblages never fail to seduce and mesmerize. An early piece titled The Last Caucasian War (2014), for example, comprises his mother’s laptop submerged in muddy water, with tiny fiddler crabs crawling over it. This captivating scenario encapsulates the real and urgent crises of environmental degradation and climate change.

Hooper Schneider is probably best known for his Trans-Habitats, aquarium tanks teeming with an array of materials culled from his various collections in the studio or those sourced from the field, which he considers “worlds that materialize and dramatize in diverse ways nature conceived in a specifically monist mode—i.e., as a process of ceaseless morphogenic modulation, a relentless onslaught in which bodies, as formed matters, are continuously created, transformed, and destroyed. . . . My sculptures and systems deploy a set of conditions involving perceptual shift, interactivity, mutation, juxtaposition, containment, openness, life, death.”

For example, each of the thirteen terraria in the Pet Semiosis series—such as Pet Semiosis 11: Leprosy (Hebrew) (2016), Pet Semiosis 5: Lethal Injection (Burmese) (2015), and Pet Semiosis 9: Coprolalia (Arabic) (2016)— displays a neon sign in a different language and alphabet, referencing a disease, symptom, or cause of death. More recently, he has produced the series Planetary Vitrines, larger-scale Trans-Habitats that grew out of his 2017 maritime expedition (supported by the BMW Art Journey initiative) to seven coral ecosystems in varying states of growth and decay—including White Island, New Zealand; Cocos Keeling, Indian Ocean; and Zighy Bay, Oman. Each reef biotope he visited suffered from a form of human interference followed by either efforts at damage control or total neglect. Hooper Schneider buried empty vitrines at two of the reef sites, leaving them to transform organically into “Trans-Habitats, co-created by artist, reef, and other natural and human participants in the process.”

Continuing this narrative, Hooper Schneider’s Hammer Projects exhibition explores “climax communities,” which represent “the final stage of succession, remaining relatively unchanged until destroyed by a disaster or event caused by humans or other destructive forces, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or large perturbations in the atmosphere,” inevitably leading to another precondition of succession. The artist argues that nature, in this exact way, exists in an ongoing state of climax and molecular flux. Circling back to his scavenging rituals, he has transmuted objects and materials that he has amassed over the years—burning, chopping, combining, and solidifying in a layer of marine epoxy and primordial ooze—into a landfill cascading into a reservoir of yet more stuff. It’s at once horrifying and intoxicating, seductive and foreboding.

Baby dolls, plastic fruit, bullet shells, shopping carts, chains, air plants, a dollhouse, a suitcase, a pay phone, freeze-dried food, cables, car parts, wire hangers, plastic vines, a life-size plastic alligator, and more were combined into islands of debris, mini dumps within an archipelago, and baked in the New Mexico sun. Hybrid creatures—part human, part marine organism—reside within the cacophony, the sole survivors and inheritors of this new world. Like a walk-in diorama, the gallery becomes one of Hooper Schneider’s Trans-Habitats, where visitors experience a biosphere of a seemingly inevitable future. Every aspect of the installation is deliberate and considered, including the lighting, which replicates the sun’s transit, and the audio, an original soundtrack recorded with marine invertebrates and electric fish and produced in collaboration with the musician Jorge Elbrecht. With this immersive installation, Hooper Schneider provides a glimpse into his weird and wonderful mind, letting us see how he engages with the world and its inhabitants.

—Ali Subotnick

Link: Max Hooper Schneider at Hammer Museum

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2R5aQXE

[boilwateradvisory]

Red tide episode kills record number of sea turtles

Wildlife officials say manatee deaths are not far behind.

SARASOTA — A Florida red tide outbreak close to 16 months old has killed more sea turtles than any previous single red tide event on record, and manatee deaths are not far behind.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission attributed 589 sea turtles and 213 manatee deaths to this episode of red tide, which began in late 2017. It had killed 127 bottlenose dolphins as of Dec. 20, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare an unusual mortality event.

Combine manatee deaths from red tide, human actions, cold stress and other causes was 824, according to a preliminary FWC report. A previous die-off killed 803 manatees in 2013 during another red tide bloom.

Preliminary data from FWC showed that the 824 manatee deaths in 2018 from both red tide, sickness and human-related causes surpassed the previous record of 803 set during another red tide outbreak in 2013.

Because of the partial U.S. government shutdown, NOAA has not provided updates for dolphins on its UME website. Dolphin strandings spiked in August and November, but have begun to slow down as red tide shows signs of weakening along the Southwest Florida coast.

Few experienced the gruesome first-hand effects of red tide more than turtle patrol participants, who wore masks and scarves to check turtle crawls following hatching during nesting season, May through October.

Don MacAulay of Englewood said he felt the effects of the airborne toxins — a nearly 150-mile by 20-mile wide bloom at its peak — driving over the bridge to Manasota Key. His throat and eyes burned from the aerosolized red tide toxins carried miles by the sea spray.

The stench of the carnage hung on the summer humidity.

“We were wearing snorkel goggles and respirators to do the job,” said MacAulay, a volunteer since 2016. “It was just horrible. Everywhere you stepped, you couldn’t go down to the shoreline. It was lined all the way with dead fish. … The bugs were worse.”

Turtle patrollers — doctors, dentists, anglers, kayakers, teachers, outdoors people from all walks of life — donned military-grade gas masks or wore scarves over their face on mile-long walks to check for fresh turtle crawls. Later on, they cleared a path through piles of rotting fish to make way for hatchlings racing to the sea.

“The turtles barrel through the dead fish and still nest,” MacAulay said. “We had to go each day regardless of the stench and the toxins in the air. We tried to protect ourselves the best we could. It’s kind of extreme when you’re walking down the beach like you’re in chemical gear in a lab somewhere.”

MacAulay, and many others who signed on for the previously leisurely strolls to check nests — before sunrise and before beachgoers or tides could erase evidence of the crawls — didn’t quit the thankless job.

“We protect every single nest on the beach from predators and whatever,” MacAulay said. “If we miss a day, it’s pretty bad. Even during hurricanes people try to go out before it gets bad.”

In September, an exasperated MacAulay posted a photo of a deceased dolphin on Facebook. It’s jawbone was exposed and it appeared to have been dead for a while.

“Red tide is wiping everything out,” MacAulay told the Herald-Tribune after the discovery.

Fellow Manasota Key patroller Emily Rizzo, whose asthma makes her more prone to red tide sickness — the itchy throat, watery eyes and coughing — continued her duty walking a half-mile stretch despite the symptoms.

“I love sea turtles; I feel an obligation,” said Rizzo, who lives in Venice. “Frankly, if I could have found someone to take my place, I’d be happy to let them do it, but we are short of volunteers. It was tough, but I thought I had to do it.”

The turtle hatchlings needed the support. Coyotes have become very active on Manasota Key in the past few years, according to Rizzo.

“We were very, very worried about our babies,” she said.

Suzi Fox, the director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch & Shorebird Monitoring, said 2018 was a highly successful nesting season on Anna Maria Island thanks to about 89 walkers. They reported that an estimated 35,000 hatchlings came from 534 nests on the island.

She suspects there could be a dip in nesting next year after several record seasons.

“People don’t come to Anna Maria Island to visit a high rise,” Fox said. “They come for the wildlife. These people are dedicated to wrapping their arms around the wildlife and protecting it.”

It could be decades before the impact of red tide on the hatchlings is known. Sea turtles take about 20 to 30 years after hatching to reach sexual maturity and mate, according to NOAA.

The data patrollers provided to local and state groups will be vital to studying the long-term impact of red tide on the area’s endangered sea turtles.

“The sea turtle patrol were some of our biggest help during this,” said Gretchen Lovewell, strandings investigations program manager at Mote Marine Laboratory. “They were reporting animals to us every morning, often times collecting them in one area so we could one-stop shop. It was hard enough to pop over the dune and breathe again. They were breathing it in and coughing.

“The death and destruction was bad, but they helped get them out of the environment quicker.”

Mote performed more than 200 necropsies on sea turtles this summer.

The widespread effect of this year’s red tide outbreak made it more difficult to recover and treat marine animals, according to FWC veterinarian Martine DeWitt, who said the 2013 bloom that killed 277 manatees was more localized near Charlotte County.

DeWitt said the recent red tide took more coordination among local and state agencies and that manatees with suspected red tide toxicity are still being collected.

“The toxin can persist in the environment and still be in the sea grass,” she said. “It’s not over yet.”

So far, Manatee County has picked up 316 tons of dead fish from waterways — consuming 892.5 regular hours and 253.24 overtime hours. Cleanup has cost the county $210,543, the bulk of the costs incurred by contracting with a vendor ($154,482) to clear residential canals during the peak of the bloom.

Sarasota County removed 251 tons of red-tide related fish and marine debris from County managed properties at a cost of $231,991.57. About 4 additional tons of debris removed from the City of Sarasota were not included in the county cost.

Source: https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20190115/red-tide-episode-kills-record-number-of-sea-turtles