September is marked as Microplastics Awareness Month and September 18th is International Coastal Cleanup Day (ICC) for people around the world. As Floridians, coastal cleanups are essential to preserving the quality of life for not only humans, but for our aquatic friends as well. The Ocean Conservancy, a national nonprofit, started International Coastal Cleanup Day…

Gainesville, Fla. (September 14, 2021) – Have you ever caught and released a fish only to see it float  away on the surface? Each year millions of reef fish are discarded — and many die — due to  barotrauma, damage caused by the rapid expansion of gases in fish brought to the surface. Return ‘Em…

Two writers from Florida universities have been awarded $1,000 each as the 2021 recipients of the Florida Outdoors Writers Association scholarship for outdoor communicators. The winners are Mack White, a PhD candidate in Earth Systems Science at Florida International University in the Coastal Fisheries Research lab and Megan Cahill, an undergraduate at the University of…

People love Florida-farmed clams. They are great on pasta or to eat baked, steamed or raw. Sales of these munchable mollusks typically peak around holidays, but during the 2020 Memorial Day weekend, Florida clam farmers watched as markets for their product dwindled in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurants and bars are the largest…

Communities in the South Atlantic coastal region are increasingly experiencing the effects of re-occurring flooding from sea-level rise, which compromises infrastructure critical to transportation, stormwater and emergency operations. This ‘nuisance flooding’ also impacts the quality of life for residents faced with disruption of essential services and reduced mobility. The effects of rising seas and flooding…