greenerMIAMI

Sea Turtle-Friendly Lighting

The following is a sponsored review.

I've actually learned something as I'm conducting research for this product review. I guess I never knew much about sea turtles until today. These creatures are on the brink of extinction, and to make matters worse, only 1 out of 1000 hatchlings reach maturity. This is incredible: Sea turtles have been around since the age of the dinosaur: 60 millions years.

Miami-Dade receives these sea turtles as visitors each summer; in fact, Florida has the "largest gathering of sea turtles" in the US. That means we need to take care of them. Part of that means that you should never approach turtles in the sea or in the nest.

It also means that if you have a residence near the water, you should consider (or may be required to have) special "turtle-friendly lighting". Normal artificial lights are dangerous for sea turtles. They are attracted to the light as if it were the moon, and it will lead them off-course and away from the sea. This makes the sea turtles more vulnerable to predators, exhaustion, or automobile deaths.

So where do you find lighting that is much safer for sea turtles? I'm glad you asked! Starry Night Lights has an entire line of turtle-friendly outdoor lighting solutions. Says the website:

ALL of the fixtures offered by Starry Night Lights are Turtle Friendly. If you need to comply with turtle lighting codes in your area every outdoor light we sell should work. However, the thing that is special about the full cutoff lights featured in this section is that they may be combined with special monochromatic turtle safe lamps manufactured by Turtle Safe Lighting, LLC for the ultimate in turtle friendly lighting. The combination of full cutoff optics and monochromatic light output has been proven to be the least disruptive outdoor lighting solution for sensitive turtle breeding areas and have been approved by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Service.

More sea turtle resources:

Sea Turtle Preservation Society (Brevard)

Miami Dade Sea Turtle Nesting & Relocation Program

Wikipedia: Sea Turtle

Broward County: Sea Turtles & Lights

Sponsor Links: Starry Night Lights & Turtle Friendly Outdoor Lighting

Marine Animal Rescue Society (MARS)

Post contributed by Nicole Knauer, Assistant Coordinator for MARS.

Do you have a passion for the ocean and its inhabitants? Marine Animal Rescue Society (MARS) is looking for volunteers like you! MARS is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of marine mammals through rescue, rehabilitation, research and education. We rescue dolphins and whales in distress from Palm Beach to Florida City and assist in the rescue of injured manatees all over southern Florida.

Have you ever wanted to be so near a dolphin you can hear and feel its echolocation? You may just get a chance. Our volunteers are from all walks of life and not only participate in public outreach events to spread word about conservation, but are fundamental to our ability to successfully rescue and rehabilitate dolphins and whales.

Our rescue and rehab volunteers participate in every aspect of the animals’ care – feeding, medical procedures, holding a weak animal up so it is able to breathe, monitoring behavior. Volunteers are important in the basic running of a rehab site – scheduling volunteer shifts, preparing fish, water quality control. Our volunteers are also very environmentally conscious and participate in beach clean-ups and table at public events to educate about pollution, safe boating practices, marine mammal viewing guidelines, and what to do if you see a marine mammal in distress.

To become a rescue and rehab volunteer, you need to attend a Basic Rescue and Rehabilitation Training. We have an upcoming training – March 3! Come and have a fin-tastic time with us!

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Borrowing Sand

Post contributed by Maria de los Angeles Lemus, a freelance writer and designer who also blogs under the pen name Manola Blablablanik.

Everyone knows that fancy cars and glass-walled condos are just but a few of Miami-Dade's little luxuries, but did you know sand was a precious commodity? Yes, sand. In a recent article posted on Florida Sportsman's website, I learned that Miami is basically shopping for that stuff under our feet, trying to whisk it away from other Florida beaches.

"Deepwater dredging is difficult and expensive, and the environmental impacts aren’t well understood. And according to Dade County officials, they have but one easily accessible 'borrow area' left in emergency reserve, which they say contains relatively low-quality material. The pressure to dredge very close to coral reefs in Broward suggests that those municipalities have nearly exhausted offshore 'borrow areas.'"

The debate on the efficacy of beach nourishment is considerable and beyond the scope of this introduction to the article. But one thing is certain: beach nourishment is common public works in many coastal areas around the world, as erosion occurs naturally, even without the encroachment of human habitat.

Benefits of beach nourishment include storm surge protection and additional habitat for flora and fauna that depend on shorelines for food. Humans also enjoy the recreational advantages of simply having more sand in between the water and the parking lot, which fuels the tourism industry. Beach nourishment, like so many things South Beach, is the environment's equivalent of plastic surgery. Without beach nourishment, bikini-clad damsels and their six-pack princes would have to endure such annoyances as high tide.

It's all good, until you notice two remarkable disadvantages, which are painfully obvious: beach nourishment doesn't last forever and sand is not an easy renewable resource.

This is a case of human hubris meets environmental reality. A naturally occurring condition and the scarcity of sand only underscores yet another oversight from developers and local officials who keep signing permits by the dozen to build yet more condos for transient residents on our already overcrowded island. Let's face it: it's not for the birds, it's for the selling power of dream vacations and high-priced condos.

"Borrowing sand" away from an ecologically sensitive yet relatively stable area like Port St. Lucie's shoal isn't borrowing -- it's stealing. Let's hope our scientists, engineers and local officials put on their thinking caps to arrive at a better solution for all creatures great and small. In the environment, as in life, everything is connected.

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They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

The song Big Yellow Taxi, most recently heard from the Counting Crows, has inspired this post. Originally written and performed by Joni Mitchell in 1970, this song has as much significance today as it did over 35 years ago.

Let's go through some portions of the lyrics:

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

This sounds like Miami, especially with the pink hotel, boutique and hot spot! You'll read about it in the papers, hear about it at commission meetings, and see it every day on your way to work: The developers vs. the environment. We've got no where to grow with the ocean on one side and the Everglades on the other. I do believe that we can grow the city in a smarter way. I know people are working on it. But I also believe that if even more people realized, "that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone," we'd be on a better road to the future.

More lyrics:

They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them

I visited Fairchild for the first time recently, on the last day of the Chihuly exhibit. Fairchild has the world's largest and most diverse palm collection. If that's not a tree museum, I don't know what is. And I paid a lot more than a dollar and a half to get in. But that's not Fairchild's fault. They are part of the solution. As stated in last week's Miami Today interview with Michael Maunder, Director of the gardens, "We have some of the rarest plants in the world here in our collection - rarer than pandas and more difficult to breed, some of them." Some plants that supported a specific species of butterflies, for example, were all destroyed in the wild...so then what happens to the butterflies?

Lyrics:

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please

DDT, a pesticide now banned, is just one example. This section is really talking about organic. Now, up to even a year or so ago, I didn't really care about organic. Here's the thing. Pesticides are on our food. They also are in our farm land, which affects our water. They are extremely toxic to the people administering the chemicals. They also kill everything...and then we won't know what we've got til it's gone. When you buy organic, your veggies aren't going to be flawless. That doesn't mean that anything is wrong with them. In fact, flawless food should make you wonder what it took to get the food so perfect. Do you remember how good tomatoes used to taste? And how they taste now? Leave me the birds and the bees.

Manatee Population Growing, Continue Education

Post contributed by Gabriel J. Lopez-Bernal of Transit Miami.

Well, it’s official, manatees and bald eagles have been downgraded from the State’s endangered species list to “threatened.” Though this is a positive step which clearly marks that the animals are rebounding from our former destructive ways, we must continue to educate people on the importance of conservation.

It has taken years of no-wake zones and countless educational programs in order to get manatee populations back up above 3,000. Hopefully the no-wake zone safe guards will remain in effect for years to come in order to protect their growing populations from their deadliest predators: careless humans on boats.

In case you haven’t seen a wild manatee, I suggest you make the effort to see one, the experience is very rewarding and breathtaking (The Deering Estate property in South Dade is a great place to catch your first glimpse.)

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also moved to protect the Florida gopher tortoise from the senseless deaths their population has experienced in the past years by developers. The new classification would not allow developers to bury the turtles alive the way they have done for the past years. It’s unbelievable that such senseless acts are still commonplace in our local industries. Unfortunately, our local animal species typically have to see their populations be completely decimated before protective measures are taken.

Photo credit: Flickr, E Journeys

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