The Buoys

My mom and I went for a walk on the beach a few days ago. There recently has been a huge dredging project on Lido beach (please check out http://www.oceanpreservers.org/2015/01/dredging.html for more information). That day we waled down south from where we normally walk. On this walk we found many broken pieces of sand dollar that have recently been killed by the dredging process, lots of trash, and the two huge buoys and cable shown in the picture. We dragged it back to one of the condos which was not gated in so we could drive over to remove it (it weighed a lot). After the back aching work, we drove over and removed it. We plan on recycling the cable and possibly reusing the buoys. The hardware alone weighed eight pounds and my dad removed the rust and it looks almost new. We will also try to reuse the hardware.

A Sad Trip To Lido

Brown Pelican

Green Sea Turtle

 Last week, my mom and I walked on the beach after I was done volunteering at Save Our Seabirds. What we saw was very upsetting. First we found a dead brown pelican. Someone had put a cigar into its bill. I removed the cigar from its bill and adding it to the trash I was removing from the beach. We continued walking and in the distance, we saw some people taking something out of the water. We were pretty far away so I could not tell what it was right away, it looked a little like a sea turtle. I walked over and we saw that they pulled a dead sea turtle out of the water and were reporting it to Mote. It had several fibropapilloma tumors on it which could have caused its death. Another sad thing that was on  the beach was the amount of trash that lined the shore. I must have picked up a hundred plastic bottle caps plus lots of other trash like an old battery. The reason why I am starting my beach clean-up project is to remove the trash on the beach before it gets eaten by animals and pollutes the ocean. I also hope to educate people about the threats that debris has on not just our coastline, but on the ocean and the animals that live in it.

Trash That We Picked Up

Stingrays, Stingrays, and More Stingrays!

Stingray Under The Sand

 Recently at Lido, there have been a lot of stingrays in the water. They're usually Atlantic stingrays, but we have also seen devil rays again in the water. The first stingray picture is covered with sand which makes it hard to identify. There has also been lots of fish washing up on shore. The ones that I have seen include: lots of cowfish, a grouper, a butterfly ray, and a toadfish. They have been becoming stranded more frequently than usual, probably because of all the recent storms.

Two Atlantic Stingrays