May June 2007 Volume Changes to the existing boating safety ordinance are as follows:

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1 May June 2007 Volume 48 3 Manatee County Boaters: Boating Ordinance Public Hearing, Wednesday, May 30 th ; 6:00-8:00 PM Kendrick Auditorium (Agricultural Center in Palmetto) th St. W., Palmetto, FL Changes to the existing boating safety ordinance are as follows: Change the Manatee Beach and Coquina Beach swim areas from slow speed/minimum wake zones to vessel exclusion zones. These areas have historically been vessel exclusion areas. This change is necessary to correct an oversight by staff during adoption of the boating safety ordinance. Overlay a slow speed/minimum wake zone on the Myakka River. Overlay a slow speed/minimum wake zone on the upper Braden River (above the dam). Shorten the regulated channel (25 mph) in the Longboat Pass area and correct the mapping error to the Town of Longboat Key slow speed/minimum wake zone. Expand the slow speed/minimum wake zone in the downtown Bradenton area from approximately 1,900 feet west of the Green Bridge to approximately 3,800 feet east of the Desoto Bridge. The resulting slow speed minimum wake zone will encompass approximately 1.5 miles of the river and will extend from shore to shore. Eliminate the gaps in the slow speed minimum wake zone between the County s slow speed/minimum wake zone (buffer measured from shoreline) to the state s slow speed minimum wake zone (includes the ICW and within 100' of the marked ICW) from 1,650 feet north of the Cortez Bridge to 750 feet south of the Cortez Road Bridge. For more information contact: Bill O Shea,

2 Coastal Programs Manager Conservation Lands Management Department (941) x 4613 FAX: (941) bill.oshea@co.manatee.fl.us Assessment of Boat Propeller Scar Damage Charlotte Harbor has been one of the areas of Florida most severely scarred by boat propellers, according to data compiled by the Florida Marine Research Institute for a 1995 report. Under a cooperative agreement with the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program (CHNEP), and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) the 1995 report was updated for the coastal portion of the CHNEP by assessing the extent and severity of boat propeller scars in seagrass habitats. This update provides local resource managers with an analysis of the current extent, location and severity of boat propeller scarring. The complete report is available as a PDF file on the website at CHNEP.org click on Harbor Happenings. A CD can also be ordered that contains the report, as well as a seagrass manager s toolkit, portions of the 1995 report, images, GIS files and a seagrass toolkit for those who work with the public. A 7.5 minute video to help boaters spot seagrasses is also available free of charge from the CHNEP. The scarred seagrass habitat for Charlotte County, Lee County and the small portions of Sarasota County within the CHNEP boundary amounted to 21,816 acres in 1993 and 30,064 acres in the updated analysis. The amount of seagrass habitat affected by propeller scarring increased 38 percent from 1993 to The amount of severely scarred seagrass habitat increased 71 percent, while the amount of lightly scarred seagrass declined 50 percent. Presumably, the decrease in lightly scarred area results from habitats that have been classified as light scarring in the previous study that are now contained within the areas classified as moderately and severely scarred. Source: Harbor Happenings, Volume 11, Issue 1: ****************************************************************************** Bird Mortality Protocol The Florida Fish and Wildlife no longer is advising folks to handle/save dead birds. Rather, they would prefer you enter the information into the bird mortality database at A thank you message pops up after the data entry is completed that provides instructions for disposal if they are unable to collect the birds. If you do handle the birds for some reason, they advise that you wear gloves, wash well afterwards, and do not put birds in refrigerators, freezers, or coolers used for food. More information can be found at their avian influenza surveillance web site at Relatedly, 2

3 they are also conducting surveillance for chronic wasting disease (and other diseases) in freeranging white-tailed deer. They are asking anyone who observes or receives a report of a sick deer or deer dead of unknown causes to call CWD-WATCH ( ); their CWD web page is at Source: Mark Cunningham, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Cultured Coral Could Help Repair Damaged Reefs, University of Florida Scientists Say Coral might be the slowest-growing crop ever farmed by the University of Florida, but researchers say damaged reefs could be repaired faster if they perfect methods to cultivate the marine organisms. UF experts are raising seven species of coral at the Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin, and next week they ll dive to check the progress of farmed corals returned to the wild last year. The dive takes place at a reef near Key West where a freighter ran aground in 1993, said Craig Watson, director of the Ruskin lab. Almost 160 cookie-sized coral fragments were placed there last year. The reef is within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, a protected area that comprises most of the Florida Keys. If you grow coral in a greenhouse in a land-based system and put in the wild, will it survive? Watson said. There are those who say no, because it won t be acclimated to those conditions where it grew and it can t survive elsewhere. We don t believe that, we are setting out to prove that wrong. Researchers and the marine sanctuary staff hope to create a network of nonprofit organizations, businesses and individuals to raise coral and contribute specimens to repair damage from events such as vessel groundings and anchorings, said Lauri MacLaughlin, a resource manager with the marine sanctuary. The sanctuary includes Western Sambo Reef and Ecological Reserve, location of the restoration effort. The dream is that corals rescued from human impact or coastal construction projects be used to help restore reefs elsewhere in the sanctuary, MacLaughlin said. Corals are tiny invertebrate animals that resemble sea anemones. Dwelling in colonies, they produce a skeleton-like structure composed mostly of calcium carbonate; only the outermost portions are alive. Though corals feed by capturing minute organisms, they co-exist with algae that provide additional food and give the coral color. The UF project involves seven coral species commonly found in Florida, the only state in the continental United States with extensive reefs near its coasts, Watson said. Overall, the state is 3

4 home to more than 100 coral species. Coral growth is estimated to range from one foot to 16 feet every 1,000 years. Fragments placed at the Key West site had been managed in one of three ways, Watson said. One set was raised in a Ruskin greenhouse, held in tanks of artificial seawater. Another was cultured at a Mote Marine Laboratory facility at Summerland Key, using an outdoor system with seawater pumped from offshore. A third was placed on the damaged reef almost immediately after harvest. Each fragment is numbered so it can be tracked. Colonies of larger fragments are being held in a rooftop greenhouse at The Florida Aquarium in Tampa, said Ryan Czaja, a supervisor who handles day-to-day care of the colony. The aquarium obtained two grants that fund the work; it is the organization leading the project. Czaja was part of a team that collected all the coral from its original home, an underwater sea wall at a U.S. naval base in Key West Harbor. Planned offshore sea wall construction threatened to encase or destroy existing corals, so the state and the sanctuary granted a collecting permit. It was tough diving, Czaja said. We were out in the channel and there was a lot of water flow, visibility was about four feet But nothing dangerous or we wouldn t have been down there. Checking the fragments health is a rigorous task, said Kathy Kilgore, a Ruskin lab veterinarian, one of five divers making the trip. Kilgore will assess the health of each fragment, using protocols developed by veterinarians Roy Yanong, a faculty member at the Ruskin lab, and Ilze Berzins, vice president of biological operations at the Florida Aquarium and a UF/IFAS adjunct faculty member. The inspection protocol is an essential part of the project, Watson said, because researchers want to minimize the possibility coral fragments returned to the wild will introduce diseases to new areas. Most coral pathogens are identified by signs or appearance, Watson said. So based on that, we developed the health certification with Roy and Iliz, utilizing a ruthless visual if it doesn t look fantastic it s not certified. The fragments, attached to the reef with epoxy, are scattered over two areas, each measuring several hundred square meters. Others will photograph and map the site. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission s Florida Wildlife Legacy Initiative is funding the project. Launched in 2004, the initiative receives about $2.5 million in federal funding each year, said Christine Small, who coordinates conservation partnerships among state agencies. Source: University of Florida News, filed under Research, Environment, Florida on Thursday, March 15,

5 Past Hurricanes Teach Lessons in Better Boat Protection The past hurricane seasons have given boaters and marina operators a lot of opportunity to evaluate which protection methods for boats and facilities worked the best. Documentation by insurance companies and consumer organizations, such as Boat U.S., now makes this new information available to all boaters. The boater s best protection from damage to their boats is to get them out of the water. Boats and yachts that were stored ashore on blocks and tied down survived the storms virtually unscathed. Those boats left in the water at docks suffered damage or sunk. In addition, boats on dockside lifts suffered a lot of damage from being blown off cradles, bunk boards breaking, grinding against the lift or piling, etc. Hurricane force winds and the tidal surge seemed to be the major factors damaging boats on lifts. Docks and their boats were similarly pummeled by the wind, waves and tidal surge. Surprisingly, concrete pilings proved to be more susceptible to breaking in two than the more flexible wooden pilings. Boats at floating docks fared better than ones at fixed docks, but only up to the height of the pilings they were attached to. In areas of high tidal surge, the floating docks floated right over their pilings and sailed away with the attached boats in tow. Now many marinas with floating docks that had 6-8 foot high pilings are replacing them with 18 foot pilings. What about boats at anchor? Anchoring out, particularly in a known hurricane hole can be safer than staying tied to a dock. An anchored boat needs multiple extra-large anchors with the outmost anchors about 90 degrees from one another. An anchor typically used for regular overnight and short term anchorages is not sufficient for hurricane protection. One interesting aspect of anchoring is the type of anchor line used and how it is attached to the anchor and boat. An anchor with an all-chain anchor rode does not stretch and is not recommended for hurricane anchorage. The best anchor rode has proven to be an extra large nylon line attached to a generous length of chain at the anchor end and to a polyester line that extends from the cleat through the chock to just over the side of 5

6 the boat. The nylon line stretches and provides stability in high waves while the polyester stretches less in the chock and provides greater resistance to abrasion and chafing than the nylon line. This information is only a partial description of the findings and recommendations that ca be found in the Boat U.S. publication, Hurricane Warning: A Guide to Preparing Boats and Marinas for Hurricanes. A Web version of the hurricane brochure is available at Source: Douglas Gregory, Monroe County Marine Extension Agent. Whither the Whales Exactly where whales are at any given time is something of a mystery but soon may become clearer through the use of a tool designed for tracking cosmic neutrinos (whatever they are). The Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics planned to build a neutrino detector 3500 meters deep off the coast of Catania. Before proceeding they decided to look at an alternative method using acoustic sensing. To see whether background noise was low enough to use it, they placed four detectors off the coast of Sicily. As it turned out, the sound frequencies useful for neutrino detection corresponds to that used by whales and dolphins. When marine biologists analyzed the sound recordings they found they could uncover both the number of whales (sperm whales in this case) and their movements in the Mediterranean. There are far more whales than anyone had suspected and showed seasonal movements hitherto unknown. Source: Southern Shore Lines, American Littoral Society publication, April, Sincerely, John Stevely Sea Grant Extension Agent 6

Oceans Humans both depend on it and threaten it with their activities

Oceans Humans both depend on it and threaten it with their activities Oceans Water covers nearly ¾ of the Earth s surface More than 50% of the world s population lives within an hour of the coast Oceans