Tag: Florida
The content below has been tagged with the term “Florida.”
Articles
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The festival takes place Oct. 27 at the refuge, located on Apalachee Bay on the Florida Panhandle. Photo by Mark Davis, USFWS.
It’s monarch time
October 24, 2018 | 5 minute read
St. Marks, Florida — And now for a small bit of good news in a part of the country where a hurricane has made nearly every tale bad: The Monarch Butterfly Festival will take place as planned. Walk, drive and — yes — fly to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to celebrate that colorful flutterer, Danaus plexippus. The festival is Oct. 27 at a refuge where Hurricane Michael came calling earlier this month. Learn more...
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The sand-clogged dock with St. Vincent NWR in the background. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS.
Survivors of the storm
October 22, 2018 | 6 minute read
Bradley Smith seeks evidence that the red wolves survived Hurricane Michael off St. Vincent NWR. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS. Apalachicola, Florida — Bradley Smith stood tall on the bow of the SeaArk 21-footer with a VHF antenna held high. It was quiet, too quiet. It had been six days since Hurricane Michael devastated the Panhandle and Smith was listening for signs of life on St. Learn more...
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A street whose name no longer applies now that it’s nearly treeless. Service crews worked Thursday to remove fallen oaks from the yards of people on Shade Street in Panama City. Photo by Mark Davis, USFWS.
“The first people we’ve seen here since the hurricane”
October 19, 2018 | 8 minute read
Panama City, Florida — They didn’t have much time. Rose and Perry Lane fled just hours before Hurricane Michael bowled into Panama City. They took Mary Lane, 92, Perry’s mother. Simbo the cat sat in a carrier on her lap. The Lanes headed inland to an emergency shelter at a school where safety waited. Or so they thought. The fast-moving hurricane, trimming Panhandle pine forests like an immense lawn mower, got to the school not far behind the Lanes. Learn more...
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A buoy washed ashore by Hurricane Michael at St. Marks NWR.
Service makes headway in Hurricane Michael repairs
October 17, 2018 | 5 minute read
St. Marks, Florida — The images of Hurricane Michael’s rampage across the Panhandle have been seared, by now, into the nation’s collective consciousness: the roofless homes; the mountains of debris; the long lines of anguished people; and the miles of chopped-in-half trees. The worst of the damage came courtesy of winds nearing 155 mph. Michael’s counter-clockwise punch, though, pushed water from the Gulf of Mexico deep inland, swamping small towns, barrier islands and wildlife refuges, particularly along Michael’s eastern edge. Learn more...
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Hurricane Michael bent the sign for Mercedes Ave. in half. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS.
The Battle for Mercedes Avenue
October 14, 2018 | 6 minute read
Panama City, Florida — The battle for Mercedes Avenue was joined. On one side stood an army of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sawyers, swampers and heavy-equipment operators. On the other, a seemingly impenetrable forest of hurricane-downed pines and oaks blocking the street and keeping locals, utilities and ambulances from getting through. The Service’s sawyers readying to attack a tree. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS. Hurricane Michael had ripped across the Panhandle destroying houses, businesses and this city’s once-lovely tree canopy with equally reckless abandon. Learn more...
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A bowling alley on US 98 in the wake of Hurricane Michael. Photo by Dan Chapman.
Service task forces start assisting in Hurricane Michael recovery
October 13, 2018 | 5 minute read
Panama City, Florida – The sawyers and engineers, swampers and commanders arrived in the dark Thursday unable to fully grasp what Hurricane Michael had wrought. But there was no mistaking the devastation when the two-dozen U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service workers woke Friday in this Panhandle town no longer recognizable. Virtually every tree for miles was down or damaged. Roofs disappeared from homes and businesses along U.S. 98 only to be found a block away. Learn more...
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Two volunteers distribute mulch made from invasive Melaleuca trees across the expanded pollinator garden space. Photo by Jessica Sutt, USFWS.
Friends, plants, and pollinators grow at Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge garden
October 4, 2018 | 2 minute read
Inspired by the Service’s pollinator protection initiatives and a butterfly inventory in 2015, members of the Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge formed a committee to begin work on establishing a pollinator garden at Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. With a new headquarters administrative office site and acres of yard space surrounded by natural habitat, the Friends recognized an opportunity to simultaneously beautify the space, engage volunteers, educate guests, and add beneficial native plants for local pollinators. Learn more...
Faq
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Eastern black rail in flight – Texas, April 2016. Photo © Jesse Huth, used with permission, Huth Avian Services.
Proposed listing for the eastern black rail
October 5, 2018 | 12 minute read
What action is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service taking? The Service is proposing to protect the eastern black rail, a small secretive marsh bird native to the United States, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Partially migratory, the eastern black rail is known in as many as 36 states, plus multiple territories and countries in the Caribbean and Central and South America. It is one of four subspecies of black rail, which live in salt, brackish, and freshwater marshes. Learn more...
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Black-capped petrel off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC. Photo © Brian Patteson, seabirding.com used with permission.
Proposed listing of the black-capped petrel as threatened
October 5, 2018 | 4 minute read
What action is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service taking? The Service is proposing to list the black-capped petrel as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). What is the black-capped petrel? The black-capped petrel is a seabird that breeds on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It travels long distances to forage as far away as open ocean waters off the coast of Virginia. Learn more...
News
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Eastern black rail. Photo © Tom Johnson, used with permission, The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Service proposes to list the eastern black rail as threatened under the Endangered Species Act
October 5, 2018 | 5 minute read
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners are working to protect a small, secretive marsh bird that is in steep decline. Some populations of the eastern black rail along the Atlantic coast have dropped by as much as 90 percent, and with a relatively small total population remaining across the eastern United States, the Service is proposing to list the subspecies as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Read the full story...
