“Moonlight Turtle Walks” sponsored by the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery and Science, will take place July 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 14, and 16 from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.
The Turtle Walk adventure begins at the Museum of Discovery and Science, 401 SW 2nd Street, Fort Lauderdale, with a presentation by museum staff about sea turtles. Guests will then travel to Fort Lauderdale Beach where a museum guide will scout sea turtles’ nests.
From spring to early fall, female sea turtles embark on an annual pilgrimage to the same beach where they were born to build nests and lay eggs at night before returning to the ocean.
Guests should be prepared to walk approximately one to two miles in the sand and provide their own transportation and snacks. Participants must be 9 years of age or older.
Space for these events is limited. The price for museum members is $19 and $21 for non-museum members. To secure your spot, visit mods.org/turtlewalks2020 or call 954.713.0930.
The month of June is a prime time to fish for dolphin in South Florida. One of the species most sought after by local offshore anglers, dolphin are plentiful this time of year.
Among the reasons for the popularity of the colorful, acrobatic fish is they often travel in large schools, they jump a lot when they’re hooked, they fight hard, they eat live baits, dead baits and lures, and they taste delicious blackened, grilled, sautéed, fried and even microwaved.
The keys to finding the fish are to look for diving birds, weed lines and floating debris. Birds will hover over a school of dolphin to pick off the baitfish that the voracious dolphin send into the air when they feed on the small fish. Baitfish gather under weed lines and debris such as tree trunks and wooden pallets, which attracts schools of dolphin.
Fishermen get excited when they see a frigate bird flying high overhead because they often follow dolphin in the hopes that the fish will send a flying fish airborne that they can grab. Studying a frigate’s movements is critical to determining if the bird is on a fish.
Frigates that are diving are on fish. Ones that are high in the sky are looking for fish. Frigates that are intently flying south are usually on bigger dolphin because those fish have the strength to swim south into the north-flowing current of the Gulf Stream.
Anglers should get ahead of a frigate bird and start trolling baits or lures to catch the fish the bird is following. A tactic suggested by Capt. Bouncer Smith of Miami Beach is to use live bait to pinpoint the location of the dolphin. He said boaters can get south and west of a frigate that’s flying south and toss some live pilchards into the water. Then they can get directly south of the bird and put out more pilchards and then go east of the bird and do it again.
When you see fish bust the baits, you know where to fish. Smith said to either cast a live bait to the busts or slow-troll over to them.
Smith added that if he gets in front of a frigate bird that doesn’t dive within 10 minutes, the bird is probably not on fish, and Smith looks for another bird.
If he sees little brown birds on the water, that probably means they’re feeding on scraps left behind by dolphin. If he sees a bunch of little birds working a weed patch, that usually means there are blue runners or dolphin under the weeds.
Thick weed lines are often the most productive places to find dolphin because they will tend to hold the most bait. But not always, said Capt. Jim Sharpe of Summerland Key.
“A lot of people think we catch most all of our dolphin on weed lines, which is really not the case,” he said. “We catch 80 percent of our fish on birds or out of the blue. Birds meaning little 15-inch sooty terns and of course frigate birds, they’re excellent.
“A lot of times you’ll find a nice weed line, but there’s no bait under that weed. In that case you’re not going to have a bunch of fish around the weed line. I’ve seen times in the summer when there’d be a beautiful weed line but no bait under it. And you look off to the side a half a mile away and you see the sooty terns working and that’s where the dolphin are. They’re out there eating the flying fish because there’s nothing under the weed line.”
Sometimes scattered weeds, which many anglers run past, can hold dolphin.
I had a trip with a friend out of Hillsboro Inlet where we passed some so-so weeds nine miles off the inlet as we searched for birds and thick weed lines. After going 20 miles offshore without seeing either, we decided to go back to the patchy weeds and slow-troll some live goggle-eyes on spinning outfits.
It didn’t take long for a dolphin to eat one of the baits. A few minutes later we saw a bigger fish cruise by, its green and yellow body easy to spot in the clear blue water. We cast out a goggle-eye and the dolphin ate it almost immediately. After a brief battle, that fish joined the first dolphin in the boat’s cooler.
If you come across a school of dolphin, most captains agree that live bait should be your last choice. Instead, anglers should start off by casting chunks of bait, such as ballyhoo or bonito, to the schoolies.
When the fish tire of the chunks or ignore them, Smith will use a knife to trim and streamline pieces of bait so they resemble small baitfish such as glass minnows. Another option is to cast bucktail jigs to the fish, which pulsate as they are retrieved and can look more enticing to dolphin than dead bait.
Annuals/Bedding
Plants: Annuals that can take full sun during the increasingly hot summer months include celosia, portulaca, vinca, and some coleus.
Palms: Summer’s warm, rainy months are the perfect time to plant palms. Make sure not to cover the trunk with soil.
Herbs: Plant heat-loving herbs, including basil, ginger, summer savory, cumin, Mexican tarragon, and rosemary.
Vegetables: Plant tropical vegetables, such as boniato, calabaza, and chayote this month.
What to Do
Pests: Monitor the landscape and garden weekly for harmful insects. Knowing which insects attack a plant can aid in identification and treatment.
See Landscape Pest Management: edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_landscape_pests
Irrigation: Watch for drought stress and water as needed if rainfall has been spotty. Focus on new plantings and follow watering restrictions. When rains begin, shut down the irrigation system.
Propagation: Produce more plants by air layering, grafting, division, or cuttings.
See edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_garden_propagation
Palms
and
cycads: Watch for nutrient deficiencies or other problems and use an appropriate treatment.
See edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_palm_care
Pruning: Lightly prune summer-flowering shrubs, like hibiscus, oleander, and ixora, during the warmer months to increase blooming.
Fertilizer
bans: Numerous municipalities in south Florida prohibit the application of fertilizer to lawns and/or landscape plants during the summer rainy season (June–September). See if such an ordinance exists in your area.
Lawns: Check frequently for damaged areas and keep insects in check with early treatment. Determine whether yellow and brown lawn patches are caused by chinch bugs, disease, or lack of water. Take time to determine the cause so your remedy is effective. Rejuvenate areas where grass does not grow well by replacing it with versatile groundcovers.
Soil
solarization: Clean up your vegetable garden and solarize the soil for 4–6 weeks to kill pests and disease.
See edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_soil_solarization
As creeping urbanization slowly takes over nature’s wild habitats, denizens of the wild increasingly find themselves living in close quarters with us human folks — and foraging our garbage for food. Case in point: The black bear. Once you had to go camping to risk an encounter with creatures of the ursine kind, a.k.a. bear. Now you can step out into your backyard and surprise a black bear attracted by the smell of the steaks on your grill.
While finding a bear in your backyard (or while walking your dog in the neighborhood, or when you’re on a camping trip) can be startling, to say the least, and may make your pulse pound, black bears are not dangerous unless they’ve been confronted, according to Ray Simonsen, Sr., known as “Ray the Trapper.”
Ray is a licensed nuisance wildlife trapper but says you don’t need to call a trapper if you encounter a black bear. “They’re very docile,” he says.
You can chase it away yourself, but don’t turn tail and run, he advises. Instead, put your hands in the air. Clap your hands, and yell at the bear — something like, “Hey bear, get out of here, bear.”
Back up. Don’t turn your back to the bear. You can get a small airhorn at a sporting goods store. One blast will scare the bear back into woods. The bears are more afraid of us than we are of them. There is also bear spray, available at local stores like Dick’s and Bass Pro Shops.
Although bears are normally docile creatures, if one is confronted or feels threatened by a human or a pet, it could react. As long as a bear has the means of a way out, it will retreat unless it has cubs in the area. But if cornered by people or pets, it could become aggressive.
Bears have been known to tree themselves when scared. If you do encounter a bear and see it climb a tree, leave it alone. It’s not stuck in the tree. It will come down on its own. Just let any neighbors know that there is a treed bear, so they don’t approach the tree and bother the bear. If left to its own means of escape, it will be fine and not bother anyone.
While there’s no way to ensure you won’t have a bear encounter, especially if you’re camping, you can minimize the chances of finding one in your backyard: Keep your garbage cans covered and secured. Thoroughly clean out any backyard grill, fryer, or smoker, and don’t leave food droppings on the adjacent ground. Clean up promptly after a barbeque or picnic; no matter how tired you are, don’t leave the clean-up till morning. Bears can smell food from two miles away.
If you do find a bear in your yard, chances are he is just passing through — unless you’ve left something appetizing out. If the bear can get into your garbage or finds something else of interest, then, just like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’ll be back.
You are more likely to see a bear in the spring at dusk and dawn. Like most other wildlife, they conserve their energy in the heat of the day.
What you should not do in case of a bear encounter is shoot the creature. Bears are a protected species. They are losing more and more of their habitat to construction, but the good news (for the bears, if not for those humans who fear them) is that the Florida black bear is making a comeback. There are some estimated 1400 black bears in the state now, up from the low 100s in the 1970s.
Their worst enemies are humans and cars. Despite laws, poachers still kill bears for their meat and/or their hides. And now there’s a new dark motive for bear poaching: extracting the bears’ gall bladders. It seems that the bile this organ produces is erroneously believed to have medicinal properties.
The legal consequences for killing bears are less severe than those for killing turkey and deer out of season. But recent proposals would set the minimum fine for killing bears at $750 instead of the maximum $500 under current law. Also, hunting licenses could be suspended for three years, rather than the current yearlong maximum. There is now an effort on the federal level to stop the poaching of black bears.
While a bear in your backyard that refuses to leave is unlikely, you are breaking the law if you shoot it. In such an event, call the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission at 888-404-3922.
Casey McGovern
is the Florida health department’s Drowning Prevention Program Manager for
Broward County —raising awareness about water safety is her job.
But preventing
deaths by educating people about the possible consequences of not being aware of
water-related dangers is her passion.
Nine
years after McGovern’s daughter drowned in a backyard pool, the mother of three
is still haunted by what she didn’t know then and driven by what she wants
parents to know today.
On Aug. 3,
2009, McGovern found her 19-month-old, Edna Mae, floating face-up in the pool where
“Em” had been playing in just hours earlier. The toddler died eight days later.
“You
think you are going to hear it — people think they are going to hear flailing
and splashing and yelling,” McGovern said.
But the
unthinkable can happen quicker than you think, she said. “A drowning can occur
in as little as 60 seconds.”
Mom to
three girls, who were then ages 10, 3, and 19 months, McGovern placed Em in a
chair in the family room, across the counter from where she was putting away
groceries.
McGovern
stepped away to chat with her husband. She was only gone a minute.
Today,
McGovern, of Coral Springs, talks openly about the experience, acknowledging some
of the ways Em’s death might have been prevented. She needs other parents to
know how such a tragedy happens.
At the
time of her daughter’s death, the family pool was encircled by a child safety
fence, but McGovern said the fence gate was not latched that day.
McGovern
also said there was nothing in place at the time to raise an alert to potential
trouble, such as chimes on the sliding door leading to the pool deck. “Drowning
is silent,” she said, encouraging parents to find ways to put sound to danger.
McGovern
said she also wasted precious minutes searching for her daughter inside the
house.
Whether you
have a pool or you’re at the pool or the beach, she tells parents today, check
the water first.
“We
thought we were doing everything right,” McGovern said. “There are so many
things I didn’t think about, wasn’t educated on.”
According
to the Florida Department of Children and Families, In the past two years, 12
children ages four and younger drowned in Broward County. The deaths occurred
in family pools, community pools, lakes, the ocean, and in canals. With its
125,000 backyard pools and miles of waterways, Broward offers ample risk of
drowning.
“Because
our county is covered in water and it’s swim season all year long, year after
year our statistics show we are one of the highest counties in state of Florida
for drowning fatalities,” McGovern said.
Among
her high-priority recommendations, McGovern said children should start swim
lessons as soon as they start to crawl.
The
county Children’s Services Council backs that advice by providing a $40 swim
voucher to Broward kids ages six months to four years. The voucher is available
annually, up until the fifth birthday.
“I think
knowledge is power and I think the more people who relate and connect to my
story may cause changes,” McGovern said.Sallie James writes for the Florida Department
of Health in Broward County.
Just 19, barely past his freshman year at Lynn University,
James Okina is already well-traveled, very savvy, and passionate about his
work. In fact, he’s a man on a mission.
At 15, in his hometown of Calabar, Nigeria, a city not
unlike Boca Raton with its greenery and coastal proximity, he founded a nonprofit
called Street Priests designed to help the children living in the streets.
By the time he reached 17, Okina says he became obsessed
with solving this problem on a global scale and began to study why, despite
increasing efforts to address the issue, this problem is growing and persists
worldwide.
An estimated 100-150 million children live on the streets
around the world, while 250,000 die every week from disease and malnutrition,
and 10 million are child slaves, according to Womenaid International.
In the U.S., almost 2.5 million kids under age 18 — that’s 1
in 30 — experience homelessness each year. In Palm Beach County alone, more
than 4,400 children are counted as homeless, according to the county’s Homeless
Coalition.
Kids living on the street are often victims of violence and
crime, and later often fall prey to abuse and drug addiction. They are
especially vulnerable to the human rights violations inherent in gangs, sexual
exploitation, and abuse and neglect.
As an adolescent, Okina had been tempted into gang life. He is
thankful he escaped — and it inspired him. “I rose above my own difficulties
when my parents divorced when I was 8, and many people helped me along the way.”
He remembers a cousin who came to stay where he lived with his father. Okina
told NPR in 2017, “I saw that he led a more quiet, dignified life.”
Okina had already made international news by his late teens,
as Street Priests drew attention, help, and funding. Trying to find a framework
that would help the nonprofit reach children across different cultures and
societies, he moved to South Florida to study at the Watson Institute at Lynn. Okina
is part of an inaugural cohort of scholars from around the world studying to
earn a degree in social entrepreneurship while working on issues they are
passionate about.
“The first word that comes to mind when I think of
James is unstoppable,” Tyler Tornaben, director of programs for the Watson
Institute, said. “He is majoring in his mission every day.”
In his first year at Lynn, Okina met Isaac King, 23, who
also feels driven to solve the worldwide crisis of homeless children.
King spent six months in the Dominican Republic after high
school. The Ocala native learned Spanish and was drawn to the island’s street children,
known as palomos — literally translated as “doves,” but in street slang,
meaning “rascals.” King later spent a year in Brazil, working with the homeless
“beach kids” of Rio de Janeiro.
At Lynn, joined in common cause, Okina and King set out on a
self-proclaimed “audacious” trip back to the Dominican Republic to dive deeper
into the street culture there.
Okina (right) and Isaac King flank Ana María Domínguez, Governor of Santiago Province, paying their respects during a recent visit to the Dominican Republic.
Over a period of eight days last March, the two traveled the
island, interviewing more than 60 kids, community members, police officers, and
government officials for a documentary.
“The stories and plights of both the Haitian and
Dominican children we met left a deep and burning desire in us to commit to
this problem and create a long-lasting change in our world,” Okina said.
A few of the children living in the streets in Santo Domingo. (Photo courtesy of James Okina)
The two will travel to London this summer to present their
findings at the Map the System Global Challenge, part of the Skoll Centre for
Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School at Oxford University.
King calls his mission partner an inspiration.
“James is a leader in every sense of the word,” King
said. “He embodies everything he talks about. When you hear his conviction,
you know it comes from a place of compassion and empathy.”
In the fall, Okina is set to help tackle gun violence in
Palm Beach County. Partnering with Angela Williams, founder of Mother’s Against
Murderers Association in Rivera Beach, they hope to design a plan of action to
work with kids in the community to interrupt the cycle of gun violence.
Even if he can’t solve all the world’s problems, it seems
likely Okina will at least provide sparks of inspiration and fellowship in
lending a hand. Engaging with kids is the first step.
“The future won’t create
itself. Young people must take an active role,” Okina said. “We are only 25
percent of the population, but we are 100 percent of the future.”
South Florida divers always look forward to lobster
miniseason, which for them is the biggest unofficial holiday of the year.
Properly known as the two-day sport season, which is the
last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday in July, miniseason is the first chance
for recreational divers to catch lobsters since the regular season closed on
April 1. That usually means lobsters are abundant, as commercial traps have
been out of the water since that date, and the bugs, as they are known, haven’t
been netted or snared by divers.
In addition, the tasty crustaceans are less wary than usual,
which makes them easier to catch. Instead of retreating into a hole in a coral
reef or under a ledge, like they do during the regular season, which opens Aug.
6, bugs in late July tend to stand their ground when a diver approaches.
Another reason the miniseason attracts thousands of divers
to South Florida is the daily limit outside of the Florida Keys is 12 lobsters
per person, which is double the regular-season limit. (For regulation info,
visit MyFWC.com.)
To get their limit, a fair number of divers will be in the
water at 12:01 a.m. July 24, when the miniseason begins. Most boaters don’t
head offshore until five or six hours later. They’ll be back on July 25 to
hopefully get another limit of bugs and the makings of a lobster feast for them
and their families and their non-diving friends.
Divers prepare for the miniseason weeks before it arrives.
Dive gear such as regulators and BCs (buoyancy compensators) are taken to a
dive shop for service and air tanks are filled.
Doing some dives also is part of pre-miniseason prep, both to
locate areas with lobsters and to make sure all your equipment is working
properly. For lobster divers, few things are as disappointing as having the strap
on a mask or a fin break during miniseason. Unless you have a replacement
strap, you probably won’t be catching any lobsters.
Two years ago, I dove the Monday before miniseason with my
good friend Jim “Chiefy” Mathie of Deerfield Beach. We were on the bottom in
about 60 feet and my mask was taking on water. When I tried to clear it, the
lenses popped out into my hands.
Mathie escorted me back to the surface. As it turned out, the
mask’s frame had cracked. Fortunately, Mathie had another mask on his boat that
I used that day.
The author of the book Catching the BUG: The
Comprehensive Guide to Catching the Spiny Lobster, Mathie will have a free lobster-hunting
seminar on July 23 from 6-7 p.m. to begin Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s eighth annual
BugFest, a celebration of miniseason and the town’s beach access to local
reefs.
Following the seminar is a free miniseason kickoff party —
both will be held at Plunge Beach Hotel — during which divers can register for
BugFest’s popular Great Florida Bug Hunt. For a $20 entry fee, divers receive a
goody bag and T-shirt and the opportunity to win cash and terrific prizes such
as regulators, dive computers, air tanks, dive boat trips, and hotel stays.
The Chiefy crew lined up its limit of lobsters caught during the first day of the 2018 miniseason. (Photo courtesy Steve Waters)
In the past, a $1,000 prize was awarded to the two-person team
catching the heaviest total weight of 12 bugs on Wednesday. This year, $500
goes to the team with the heaviest weight caught off Broward County and $500 to
the duo with the top weight caught off Miami-Dade or Palm Beach counties. Other
prizes include $400 for the biggest bug caught anywhere off a boat, $400 for
the biggest bug caught off the beach, and a Sherwood Oasis regulator valued at
$420 for the biggest bug caught on a midnight beach dive off
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. There are also prizes for the biggest bugs caught
Wednesday on the 6 a.m. dives on the Aqua View and Black Pearl dive boats at
South Florida Diving Headquarters in Pompano Beach.
Divers don’t need to bag big bugs to win big. They receive a
raffle ticket for each lobster they weigh in on Wednesday and Thursday. Winning
tickets are drawn at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, following the lobster chef competition,
which starts at 6 at the Beach Pavilion at the end of Commercial Boulevard. So,
a diver who weighs 24 lobsters can win multiple prizes. Divers can register in
advance at Gold Coast Scuba in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea or South Florida Diving
Headquarters or online at DiscoverLBTS.com.
“It’s fun for the divers. It gives them more of an
incentive,” said Steve d’Oliveira, the town’s Public Information Officer. “The
town knows that BugFest is fun for divers and they get behind it, and everybody
has a good time.”
Other activities include a midnight beach dive on Tuesday, a fish
identification seminar on July 26, a free clean-up dive under and around
Anglin’s Pier at 8 a.m. July 27, and the third annual Diveheart Benefit Concert
from 6:30-10:30 that night.
