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The following link is to an article written by Jessica Lee, FIU graduate student in Dr. Jennifer Rehage's aquatic biology lab ( http://www2.fiu.edu/~rehagej/index.html ). __________________________________________________________________________      In February I had an opportunity to fish with my favorite group of anglers from the Keys. For the past 30 years this group of fishermen has faithfully made it every month to the backcountry to fish. They were the inspiration for the Coastal Angler Science Team (CAST), the “original-members” before CAST officially came to be.  For the past two years they have been regularly scanning their catches for “recaptures” (previous fish we tagged with internal microchips, “PIT-tags”).  This group alone has caught over 30 recaptures, about half of the current CAST totals. To read more, please go to http://cast.fiu.edu/index.php/my-recapture-story-for-the-everglades/ .

This post was written by guest blogger Mike Bush, a grad student in FIU's aquatic ecology lab ( http://faculty.fiu.edu/~trexlerj/ ). __________________________________________________________________________ Boaters trying to push whales back to deep waters. Photo from CNN.com        This will be another post on some wide-ranging animals that only occasionally visit the Everglades.   Last time I talked about small songbirds, but I’ll scale up a bit for this round.   About a month ago, a pod of around 50 short-finned pilot whales beached themselves on a remote shore in the southwestern part of Everglades National Park.   Normally these are deep-water beasts, but for whatever reason, this particular group of animals navigated several miles through shallow sandy shoals, only to end up stranded. Pilot whales are well-known for mass strandings, and the reasons for these strandings are unknown but are thought to be related to sick individuals tryin...

  This post was written by Mike Bush, a grad student in the aquatic ecology lab ( http://faculty.fiu.edu/~trexlerj/ ) at FIU and an avid natural historian.  ___________________________________________________________________________ Male hooded warbler                In this post we’re going to move away from the Everglades proper and move to its borders, which in this case means the highly urbanized Miami/Ft Lauderdale megalopolis that lies immediately to the east of all that wild space. Even in areas of high human density, wildlife can still be found everywhere. Most of you probably have had a raccoon snoop through your garbage or have a highly diverse mix of smaller creeping beasts that live underneath your shed. We can also be visited by wildlife that is just passing through the area, say, on their way to Brazil or to Hudson Bay. A bird banding station is just the place to see such ephemeral critters. O...

This guest post was written by Phil Matich, a graduate researcher in Dr. Mike Heithaus' lab at Florida International University.  _________________________________________________________________________   We just got back from an amazing trip in August!   As always, we left early in the morning and were fortunate enough to catch the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower as we drove to the boat ramp.   On our way to the field site we saw the sun rise over the water and the mangroves, and then got right to work catching sharks.   On the first live, we caught two sharks, 79 and 85 cm total length, and surgically implanted the smaller individual with an acoustic transmitter so that we could track its movements.   Surprisingly, the larger shark was an individual we had caught and tagged in July, and is one of the first sharks we’ve recaptured in the last three years!   After only a month, the shark has grown 2 cm and gained 1 kg in body mass; the scar fr...

Good morning everyone, This blog is a tribute to all the animals that get caught up in science. Without their help, we would know alot less about the environment and the natural resources we all love! Lobster toupee None of the other lobsters can tell its scientific equipment: These tags are the same as the ones I use . They send a sound pulse that can be detected by underwater equipment and are used to track movement patterns (photo courtesy of FWRI http://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/telemetry/) Gopro shark (insert dup-step music here)   These are cameras attached to the sharks back that used to video and understand shark feeding habits. Courtesy of the Shark bay ecosystem research project and the Heithaus lab (http://www2.fiu.edu/~heithaus/SBERP/projects/tigerres.html). Punk rocker walleye… His girlfriend’s parents are not impressed   Lip tags are used in mark recapture studies. A fish gets a lip ring with a unique number and released back in...