We round out National Estuaries Week with an article about yet another marine animal that was once common in lower Pensacola Bay and disappeared. This is one that many local residents would LOVE to see make a return. It is the bay scallop. Many ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Natural Resources
Each year, consumers eat millions of oysters worldwide, with a significant number of the mollusks grown in the Gulf of Mexico. While illness from eating oysters is rare, it can be fatal. Here, Razieh Farzad, a UF/IFAS and Florida Sea Grant seafood ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Food Safety, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension
Happy Estuaries Week! Begun in 1988 to educate lawmakers and citizens about the importance of estuaries nationwide, the third week of September celebrates all things estuary. But what is an estuary, exactly? The most frequently cited ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Conservation, Natural Resources, Recreation, Water, Wildlife
Another creature that was once common in Pensacola Bay, declined, and is trying to make a comeback is the horseshoe crab. Many know about the shallow area in the center of Little Sabine, but you may not know that it was once an island that ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Natural Resources
Another metric of a healthy estuary is the diversity and abundance of fish and wildlife. Estuaries are teeming with a variety of benthic creatures like annelids worms, mollusk, and crustaceans. I have personally collected 101 species of ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Natural Resources
You cannot have a healthy estuary without healthy habitats. Estuaries include habitats such as mud flats, sand bottoms, salt marshes, mangrove swamps, oyster reefs, and seagrass meadows. Here in the Pensacola Bay system Florida Sea Grant ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Natural ResourcesWhen I first joined Florida Sea Grant water quality was, and still is, a big issue in the community. Many remember the 1960s and 1970s when fish kills were common, industrial waste was discharged into local waterways, fish were changing sex ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Natural Resources
One of the first science-related things we learn as children at school is that some animals, like birds and mammals, are warm-blooded, while others, such as amphibians, reptiles, and fish, are cold-blooded, also known as ectothermic. Cold-blooded ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Conservation, Natural Resources, Wildlife
Every time I go to the beach, I love to walk along the shoreline to see what may have washed up from the ocean – usually several beautiful shells, oftentimes sargassum seaweed, maybe even part of a crab exoskeleton. Unfortunately, I usually ... READ MORE
Category: Coasts & Marine, Community Volunteers, Conservation