To start the new year, I taught a week-long intensive intersession class on Animal Conservation. The 16 students in the class visited a variety of habitats in Central Florida from the Mangrove Swamps of Merritt Island to the Florida Sandhill Forests of the Wekiwa Springs State Park. Students gained hands on exposure to wildlife survey and conservation techniques and learned about how different governmental and private agencies practice animal conservation. Rollins photographer Scott Cook joined us for bird banding at Tosohatchee, and our ongoing turtle and fish survey at the Mead Gardens, and took awesome photos of the students at work. We might have even uncovered a new county record at the Mead Gardens for an invasive cichlid species, the Black Acara. This would be by far the most northerly record for this South American species, according to the FWC and UF Ichthyology department websites.
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September 2021
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