ERF 2001 Field Trips
Ernst Peebles
epeebles@seas.marine.usf.edu
Note: Snacks and drinks will be provided on all field trips.
Space is limited and the field trips are reserved for those who
are registered at the conference.
Field Trip 1: Ten Thousand Islands Region (western Everglades)
and the Corkscrew Sanctuary
Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 3-4, depart Saturday at 7:00
a.m.; return late Sunday afternoon
A two-day land and water tour of natural and impacted watersheds
and estuaries, including presentation of restoration plans.
Located on the Southwest Gulf Coast of Florida, the Ten Thousand
Islands region is considered to be the western boundary of the
Everglades ecosystem. Sheet flow through the wetlands of the Big
Cypress Basin delivers freshwater to this coastal area, which
is managed by Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.
The estuaries are composed of a network of mangrove islands, oyster
bars, small bays, and tidal waterways. As with the southern and
eastern regions of the Everglades, much of the watershed area
is managed for agricultural and suburban purposes.
The first part of the trip will focus on the Faka-Union watershed
and estuary, which has been heavily altered by development of
a failed housing development, the South Golden Gate Estates (SGGE).
A network of canals that were built before the SGGE project was
halted presently cause 115,000 acres of wetlands to be artificially
drained into Faka-Union Bay via a trunk canal. This freshwater
point-source for pollution has had dramatic effects on estuarine
ecology.
During the morning and early afternoon of the first day, we'll
spend 3-4 hours boating through the estuarine environments of
Faka-Union Bay, which constitutes the downstream end of the SGGE-influenced
watershed. Here we'll examine the impacts of watershed alteration
on oyster reefs, tidal sand flats and mangrove forests. You will
be able to disembark to take a close-up look at some locations.
We'll be joined by a fishery biologist, a benthic ecologist, a
sedimentologist and a mangrove ecologist who are actively investigating
watershed influences. A box lunch will be provided during the
boat tour.
Later in the afternoon, we'll drive inland to the SGGE to examine
the diversity of vegetative communities that exist in the watershed,
including wet prairies, cypress sloughs, pine flatwoods, and palm
hammocks. Because of reduction of surface and groundwater flows
and changes in hydroperiod, many of these pristine communities
have been altered and natural succession processes have been subverted.
The focus of the watershed tour will be a comparison of pristine
communities with their altered counterparts. We'll be joined by
a wildlife biologist, botanist, hydrologist and soil scientist,
all of whom are involved with assessing impacts and guiding the
restoration efforts.
Afterward, we'll travel a short distance to a motel in Naples,
arriving at about 5:30 p.m. A number of restaurants are within
easy walking distance of the motel.
We will reconvene Sunday morning at 8:30 to visit the nearby headquarters
of the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, where
management and restoration plans will be presented. On our return
trip northward, we'll visit the Corkscrew Sanctuary for a boardwalk
tour of its relatively pristine wetland system, known for tropical
bromeliads and abundant wildlife.
Trip participants will be given box lunches to take with them.
After three hours at Corkscrew, we'll continue the trip north,
returning to the Tradewinds in late afternoon.
This trip is coordinated by Michael Savarese of Florida Gulf Coast
University, and is sponsored by Rookery Bay National Estuarine
Research Reserve, FGCU, and the National Audubon Society's Corkscrew
Sanctuary. Road travel will be via bus, which will depart the
Tradewinds Resort on Saturday at 7:00 a.m. and return late Sunday
afternoon (30 person maximum, $120 per person plus lodging and
evening meal).
Field Trip 2: Canoeing the Little Manatee River
Sunday, Nov. 4, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
The Little Manatee River Canoe trip will be hosted by Florida
Marine Research Institute staff: Paul Carlson, Laura Yarbro, Kevin
Madley, and Manuel Merello. They will pick up participants at
the Tradewinds Resort at 8 a.m. and travel in 10-passenger vans
to the Canoe Outpost on the Little Manatee River. Despite the
intense development of most of the Tampa Bay watershed, the Little
Manatee River runs through healthy bottomland forests, oligohaline
marshes, and mangrove swamps before it enters the east side of
Tampa Bay.
Once on the water, the 7-mile trip will take about four hours
with stops for lunch, seining, and birdwatching. If the weather
is cool and time permits, we will take a side trip to see the
manatees that congregate in the warm effluent of the Big Bend
power plant.
Box lunches will be provided. For more information, contact Paul
Carlson (paul.carlson@fwc.state.fl.us) or visit the Canoe Outpost
web site (www.canoeoutpost.com). We will return to the Tradewinds
before 5 p.m. (30 person maximum, $40 per person).
If you would like to make independent arrangements for the Little
Manatee River canoe trip, you can contact the Canoe Outpost directly
at www.canoeoutpost.com.
Field Trip 3: Sunset Boat Trips to Shell Key
Repeat trips, Monday and Wednesday, Nov. 5-7, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Shell Key is an uninhabited, low-lying barrier island with wide,
white-sand beaches on the Gulf side and a combination of salt
marsh and scattered mangroves on the bay side. The island is known
for shelling, bird watching, and an unspoiled view of sunsets
(sunset will take place at around 5:45 p.m.). Except for a few
stands of Australian pines, there are no trees on the island;
dune vegetation is diverse and well established.
The 10-min ERF-chartered boat ride leaves at 4:30 p.m. from Merry
Pier in Pass-a-Grille, which is about a 20-minute trolley ride
from the Tradewinds Resort (trolley information can be found at
http://psta.net/beachtrolley.htm).
Teresa Greely from the USF College of Marine Science will be your
guide. The boat returns to Merry Pier at 6 p.m. (30 people per
boat trip, $25 per person plus $2.50 trolley fare).
Field Trip 4: Specialty Tours of Ft. DeSoto Park: bird
watching, interpretive forest walk, seining in SAV and non-SAV
habitats
Repeat trips, Monday-Wednesday, Nov. 5-7, 6:30 -9:00 a.m. (birding)
and 2:30 -5:00 p.m. (seining)
Nine-hundred acre Ft. DeSoto Park is one of the most well-attended
parks in Florida, yet it is not heavily used on weekdays and manages
to provide a surprisingly natural and aesthetically pleasing outdoor
experience.
The park combines barrier island habitat (and seven miles of beaches)
with mangrove habitat that is very similar to the more extensive
mangrove-dominated ecosystems found farther south on Florida'a
west coast. A small maritime forest of live oak, cedar, pine,
and sabal palm, interspersed with mangrove-choked tidal creeks,
is found near the northwest corner of the park. Extensive seagrass
meadows grow in the shallows just about everywhere that isn't
exposed to the Gulf's surf.
One birding trip will be conducted each morning, and one combination
forest walk/seining trip will be conducted each afternoon. These
six trips (8 people per trip) are collectively hosted by the Florida
Marine Research Institute, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, and
the Pinellas County Park Department.
Birding trips will depart from the Tradewinds at 6:30 a.m. and
will return before 9 a.m. (sunrise will be at around 6:45 a.m.).
Forest walk/seining trips will depart at 2:30 p.m. and return
before 5 p.m. Transportation by 10-person van will be provided
by FMRI. These trips are free of charge and will be available
on a first-come, first-served basis.
Field Trip 5: Botanical Tour of the Peace River Oligohaline
Zone
Sunday, Nov. 4, 8:00 a.m-5:00 p.m.
The Peace River has one of the largest watersheds of any of the
rivers in South Florida. While phosphate mining, agriculture and
urban development have had various impacts to both the quantity
and quality of water in the Peace, much of the flood plain remains
relatively unimpacted by human activities. The field trip will
take place in the transition zone of the Peace River, where hardwood
swamps dominated by bald cypress, elms and swamp tupelo slowly
grade into freshwater marsh habitats characterized by sawgrass,
cattails and leather ferns, and then into more typically estuarine
communities where black needle rush and various mangroves come
to dominate.
Mapping out the status and trends in the distribution of these
various communities has been a useful tool for water managers
interested in whether freshwater inflows have changed sufficiently
to cause alterations in streamside vegetative communities. Depending
on the strength of the river's flow, a pontoon boat will take
participants to the site of an off-site water withdrawal point
that supplies the drinking water needs for several counties, plus
Liverpool Island and Lettuce Lake. Liverpool Island is an area
of sharp changes in vegetation along the Peace River, and is also
the site of a "ghost town" dating back to the late 1800's.
Lettuce Lake is a very scenic location, where manatees are sometimes
found in large numbers, and where scenes from "Tarzan"
movies were filmed back in the 1930s.
Dave Tomasko, of the Southwest Florida Water Management District,
will serve as your guide. Before heading back to St. Pete Beach,
we'll have lunch at the Navigator, a casual riverside restaurant
that serves seafood, hamburgers, and Bar-B-Q.
Road travel will be via bus, which will depart the Tradewinds
Resort at 8:00 a.m. and return before 5:00 p.m. (40 person maximum,
$40 per person plus lunch).
Field Trip 6: Spartina planting at Tarpon Key
Sunday, Nov. 4, 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
This trip is hosted by RAE/Tampa BayWatch. Participants will depart
the Tradewinds at 11:30 a.m. for the short drive to Merry Pier,
where a pontoon boat will pick them up for the trip to Tarpon
Key through inshore waters. Tarpon Key, a part of the National
Wildlife Refuge system, is a mangrove-dominated island surrounded
by extensive seagrass meadows. This is the first time an ERF conference
field trip has provided participants with the opportunity to help
restore the conference's host estuary. Related information can
be found at http://volunteer.nos.noaa.gov/stories/tbw/tbw.html.
Return time is 4:30 p.m. (30 person maximum, $40 per person).
Do-it-Yourself Activities
Parks/Natural Areas
Crystal River (Crystal River, FL) Swim with manatees
Boyd Hill Nature Park (St. Petersburg, FL) An urban oasis
offering interpretive exhibits and three miles of trails (http://fcn.state.fl.us/gfc/viewing/sites/site64.html)
Brooker Creek Preserve (northern Pinellas County). 8,000-acre
wooded preserve with trails
Ft. DeSoto Park (St. Petersburg, FL) Beaches, mangrove
backwaters, canoe, kayak and bicycle concession (http//www.canoeoutpost.com),
Spanish-American-War era fort, two fishing piers, boat ramps,
nature trail at Arrowhead picnic area
Hillsborough River State Park (Thonotossasa, FL). Canoeing
and nature trails along a rocky and occasionally turbulent stretch
of river, heavily used on weekends
Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area (near Clearwater,
FL). 400 acres, unspoiled beaches and Osprey Trail through pine/cedar
forest
Little Manatee River Wilderness Area (Wimauma, FL). Lightly
used, moderately difficult hiking trail along natural levees and
through swamps, hardwood forests, and pine flatwoods. This subregion
of the Little Manatee River State Park is isolated from the main
recreation area. After paying admission to the State Park, ask
for driving directions
and the gate combination.
The J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge (Sanibel
Island, FL) 7,000 acres of mangroves offering great wildlife viewing
(alligators, a few crocodiles, more than 200 birds species recorded).
Canoe, walking, and driving trails, with canoe, kayak and bicycleconcession
Additional information on Florida State Parks can be found at
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/parks/alpha4.htm
Aquariums, Zoos & Wildlife Viewing
Florida Aquarium (Tampa, FL) http://www.flaquarium.net/
Lowry Park Zoo (Tampa, FL) http://www.lowryparkzoo.com/
Homossassa Springs Nature Center (Homossassa Springs,
FL) Small state-run zoo, featuring Florida wildlife and the "fish
bowl," an underwater observatory where you can see manatees
and marine fishes in a freshwater spring
Big Bend Manatee Viewing Center (Apollo Beach, FL) Large
numbers of manatees use Tampa Electric Company's power plant as
a thermal refuge during winter, at which time they can be seen
from a special viewing area that is free and open to the public.
Tarpon,
snook and other estuarine fish are also commonly seen
(http://fcn.state.fl.us/gfc/viewing/sites/site65.html)
Museums
Bailey-Mathews Shell Museum (Sanibel Island, FL) The only
museum in the United States devoted to the natural history of
the shell.
Salvador Dali Museum (St. Petersburg, FL) http://www.salvadordalimuseum.org/
Fine Arts Museum (St. Petersburg, FL)
Florida International Museum (St. Petersburg, FL) http://floridamuseum.org/
Fishing and Scuba Diving
Pier fishing. Redington Long Pier (fee, rod-rental available),
North and South Skyway
Fishing Piers (fee) and the two piers at Ft. DeSoto (no charge)
Deep-sea fishing. Charters for bottom fishing (grouper,
snapper, grunts), amberjack, and king mackerel are available at
nearby John's Pass and at several other marinas
Flats fishing. Spotted seatrout, red drum (redfish) and
snook fishing should be very good in early November. Tarpon are
a possibility as well. A large number of guides operate in Tampa
Bay waters.
Bass fishing. Lake Tarpon in northern Pinellas County
regularly produces fish over 10 lbs. A few guides operate there
and most practice catch and release.
Scuba diving. A number of reef and wreck dives are popular,
most in 30-80 foot depths (call Dive Clearwater at 800-875-3483)
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