Eco-Touring Key West
This winter I am too busy to write much, busy giving eco-tours of this gorgeous island, both by land and by sea.
As a bike guide for Key Lime Bike Tours, I mostly deal with people off the cruise ships. Now cruise ships on the whole are not great for the environment, but at least I can urge people to bike the island while they’re here instead of driving or taking the train/trolly. I can teach them why our ecosystem is so unique and important. Cruise-shippers generally arrive with little knowledge of the island and only a few hours to get to know it, so I have fun giving them a grand overview of the island’s history, attractions, and ecosystem. It’s a great tie-in to my travel guide, Key West: A Guide To Florida’s Southernmost City.
Buy my book! 
A few weeks ago, I picked up a second gig as an eco-tour guide for Blue Planet Kayak. With this job I get to go deep into the ecosystem with people who are very interested and concerned with the environment, and I am loving it! I have a firm grasp of our local marine creatures from my years working at the Key West Aquarium, plus know plenty about birds from my many years at the Key West Wildlife Center. However, I had done little kayaking, and at first, my muscles screamed at me after every outing. Plus, I found it easy to get lost among the mangrove creeks which can look and feel completely different given different tidal/weather conditions. I certainly found my first outings a challenge.
Now, after about a dozen times out my muscles have adjusted, I know my way around, and I find myself able to relax and have big fun. I have had the pleasure of introducing people on my tours to some amazing critters, including horseshoe crabs, queen conch, bahama sea stars, spotted sea hares, Atlantic deer cowrie, southern stingrays, reddish egrets, great white herons and more.
A Caribbean Reef Octopus occasionally shows up on my kayak tours. This one has changed its color to match the seagrass.
It’s funny to think that eight years ago, my job consisted of sitting in an office in Manhattan, intellectual rights of novels for foriegn markets–snore! Anyway, eco-touring really is the way to go when visiting Key West. With our delicate coral reefs just offshore, our sensitive sea grass beds and mangrove islands, and our ever-dwindling green spaces on land, as our population grows and our infastructure strains, its becomes imperative to attract visitors who are interested in enjoying and conserving our beautiful ecosystem rather than damaging or exploiting it.
Subspecies of the Lower Florida Keys
I am constantly amazed by how little people know about the plants and animals they encounter every day. Being able to identify what you’re seeing and why it behaves as it does makes being outdoors so much more engaging. I am lucky to live in a unique ecosystem which houses wildlife you won’t find anywhere else in the world. Lots of people don’t even know that when you see a raccoon or a rat snake in the lower Florida Keys, you are witnessing a rare, unique subspecies.
You see, an interesting thing happens when a species of animal finds itself in a balmy, subtropical ecosystem with very little fresh water. Many animals which occur in the lower islands of the Florida Keys, furthest away from the mainland, differ in appearance from their North American counterparts, and several are offically designated “subspecies” which occur no where else in the world. Apparently, scarcity of fresh water tends to make critters smaller, while year-long warmth and sunshine leads to lighter coloration.
Photo by Nancy Goodwin
Our most famous example of this miniaturization is the Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium.) Key deer are a subspecies of the Virginia white-tailed deer which inhabit a cluster of tiny islands around Big Pine and No Name Key. Key deer are much smaller than their mainland counterparts, and they have developed the unique ability to drink small amounts of salt water. Only about 800 exist in the world.
photo by Sarah Goodwin-Nguyen
This rosy red rat snake (Elaphe Guttata Rosacea) is a frequent visitor to my yard– the lower Keys version of the cornsnake. It is smaller and slimmer than its mainland counterpart, and has unique red/pink coloration with very little black.
According to my friends at the Raccoon Rescue of the Florida Keys, the lower Keys are home to TWO unique subspecies of raccoon which have likely interbred prolifically and with the subspecies occuring in the upper Keys. Our Keys raccoons are smaller, leaner, and lighter than mainland raccoons. The Key Vaca raccoon (Procyon lotor auspicatus) originated in the Middle Keys, while the Torch Key raccoon (Procyon lotor incautus) inhabits the islands from Big Pine to Key West.
Dr. Roger Wood has extensively studied the Mangrove terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin rhizophorarum) a subspecies of the Diamondback terrapin. Mangrove terrapin inhabit the Key West Wildlife Refuge. According to Dr. Wood, Mangrove terrapin have the ability to tolerate water with extremely high salinity–though they are not marine turtles. And unlike their northern counterparts which hibernate in winter, mangrove terrapin sleep away the hottest summer months and are active during cooler winter temperatures.
Other unique subspecies within the lower Keys include the critically endangered Lower Keys marsh rabbit (Sylvilagus palustris hefneri,) the Florida Keys mole skink (Eumeces egregius egregius,) and the Lower Keys striped mud turtle (Kinosternon baurii baurii.) Even our rats are a subspecies of roof rat, alternately called palm rats or fruit rats (Rattus rattus frugivorous) depending on who you ask.
Want to learn about some of our most interesting invasive species? Check out my blog post Florida Has Six Invasive Species Every 500 Feet!
Helping an Injured Bat
This adorable fellow is a velvity free-tail bat, also called Pallas mastiff or Cuban house bat (Molassas Molossus.) But I call him “Batiatus.”
Of all my blog posts, the most viewed and commented-upon is Raising a Wild Rat, about a palm/fruit rat named Spartacus. So, let me tell you about a velvety free-tail bat named Batiatus. (Yes, I love the cable show Spartacus on STARZ.)
Last year, Batiatus came into the Key West Wildlife Center with a torn-up wing. He needed a quiet place to heal and night feedings, so the Director gave me permission to take him home. I put him in a dark cage and syringed him water and tweezer-fed him mealworms every night until his injuries healed. His wing turned out to be permanently damaged–bummer! Luckily, he was offered a permanent home by Cyndi and George Marks of the Florida Bat Conservancy, who take him to classrooms and lectures. Batiatus shows people his little pug-face and chomps down some mealworms and every one sees that bats are kind of cute and not vicious.
I recently got to see Batiatus again when the Mark’s visited Key West to give a presentation to Florida Keys Audubon. I wrote about that lecture and all the reasons bats are fascinating (only mammal that flies, super-echolocation, etc.) on the Audubon blog post called Florida Bats. I was glad to see Batiatus looking fuzzy and fat and I loved seeing him act as an ambassador for his species.
I always wore gardening gloves to handle Batiatus, though he never tried to bite me. Bats are nocturnal, so sometimes I’d have to wake him up to feed him. He would vibrate in my palm, shaking blood into all his tiny organs and muscles to raise his temperature and end his torpor. Is it strange that I felt lucky to be there with him during such a vulnerable, private moment?
What is Environmental Mitigation?
My husband and I took a walk along the sea wall on S.Roosevelt Blvd. today and noticed some work going on. According to the sign, this is the “Houseboat Row Seagrass Restoration Project.” The sign claims this is a mitigation project. I had heard about ”mitigation” before, namely after the BP disaster, but I didn’t really understand how it worked. I decided to do a little research.
Environmental mitigation is complicated business. Essentially, it means that a developer which degrades or destroys a natural resource must restore ecological balance by doing something nice for the environment, preferably kind of nearby. Entities called “mitigation banks” restore wetlands and preserve habitats to use as “mitigation credits” toward development in other areas.
Though mitigation is better than nothing, experts agree that whenever possible, it is best to protect and preserve already active, viable ecosystems. Critics of mitigation banks claim that they are often used to provide loopholes for unnecessary development in sensitive habitat, and they may offer habitat of lesser value to the environment as a whole.
The writers of Report on Effectiveness of Mitigation Banking in Florida seem to have come to a similar conclusion. The report states that many mitigation areas are fragmented by roadways, towers, or other human conveniences which harm the wildlife attempting to use the area. The scientists state, ”A more realistic outlook on mitigation outcomes would probably reduce the amount of potential credits allocated for a particular site.” In other words, mitigation does NOT result in zero net loss of wildlife habitat.
The mitigation project on S. Roosevelt is compliments of an engineering and architecture firm called Corzo Castella Carballo Thompson Salman. According to their website: “C3TS staff are providing the construction oversight and monitoring of the two mitigation areas (Houseboat Row, Key West and Dove Creek Wildlife and Environmental Area, Key Largo) associated with the expansion of the North Roosevelt Boulevard. Additionally, we will conduct the post-construction monitoring to evaluate the success and sustained viability of the restored communities. If necessary, C3TS will make recommendations for any site corrections necessary to achieve the mitigation plans objectives.”
Anyway, it will be nice to observe seagrass beds from the bike path on S. Roosevelt. I hope they will fare well in a such a frequently fished, kayaked, and littered into area, so close to a busy road and storm runoff pipes. I will be curious to see what sort of wildlife, if any, eventually decides to inhabit the area or use it as feeding grounds.
Magical Realism in “The Bull Jumper”
I haven’t been blogging much lately. I have been too busy working on my novel-in-progress, bringing a chapter a week to my writer’s critique group. So far, I have one-third of a decent first-draft of a historical novel.
The Bull Jumper: A Tale of Minoan Greece takes place in approximately 1625 to 1675 B.C.E (Before Common/Christian Era.) When I first set out writing, I told myself I would not write elements of fantasy into the story. I was striving for historical accuracy, and I guessed nymphs, gods and demons were not literally running around the Greek islands.
But as I was writing, my narrator–a girl raised in the palace-temple of a great ancient city — told me otherwise. To her, the pre-Greek myths were real, and her experiences only reinforced her cultural beliefs.
So, I changed my strategy to introduce magic early and in slowly-increasing doses. Within the first handful of pages, my narrator, Amerin, finds herself lost and frightened in the famed Labyrinth of Knossos. She has the following encounter with what may or may not be an ordinary mouse:
Forgetful of whose sanctuary I was in, I prayed to my own patroness, Potnia, the Harvest-Goddess. Soon I became aware of a movement near my feet and I looked up. A tiny grain-mouse sat up on her hind legs, watching me with twitching whiskers. Such creatures sometimes acted as messengers of Potnia, so when she turned and scurried down the passageway, I followed. She seemed to wait for me when I stumbled. Within moments I recognized the ornately carved portal leading up into the palace.
That night, Amerin dreams the Harvest-Goddess hands her a pomegranate. She wakes with the fruit in her hand. Readers may decide Amerin has been sleepwalking, or someone placed the pomegranate in Amerin’s palm as she slept. But Amerin and everyone around her believes her visitation was real because in their world, this sort of thing happens sometimes.
Though The Bull Jumper is not per se a fantasy novel, I have found many of the “rules” for writing fantasy helpful. The website “Women On Writing” features an article called Navigating the Fantastic in which the writer, Sue Bradford Edwards, states “ The trickiest rules concern the magic in your world. Who can use it? When?”
I keep this in mind as I approach chapter 7, which involves Amerin’s encounter with a tree-nymph. I find myself composing a very strange list in my notebook:
The Nature of Wood-Nymphs:
1) Nymphs have physical bodies
2) They can mate with humans, have mortal babies
3) Nymphs cannot grow old or ill
4) Nymphs CAN be injured or killed by humans
5) Nymphs were once human girls, favored by a goddess
5) They cannot leave the woods/groves they inhabit while the trees live
6) They suffer terribly when the trees are destroyed, then die if they do not find new land to inhabit
7) A nymph can trade places with a human girl, but only if the human girl is willing…….
Fish Poem
Megalops Atlanticus
Tarpon tearing through a tea-green sea
scales sluicing–splash, slap, swish
The sky presses the ocean for a kissI am dizzy with lust when I look
at the water–the way a creature’s skin
can glitter in the sunWhen I’m done, the beach will be crowded
with gamey flesh. But this one is
no one’s trophy–too quick to catch
Ok, it’s a minor work at best, but I really do dig these fish: Tarpon are not only gifted with a Latin name that sounds like a Roman gladiator– Megalops Atlanticus!– but they are impressively large fish, reaching 250 pounds or more in the wild. They can live for over a hundred years, and they have the unique ability to breath air from the surface of the water through their mouths, not just filter it from water through their gills.
Giant tarpon are seen throughout Southernmost Florida, gliding under the docks of any marina: tourists are rightly astounded by seeing such a big fish swims so close to shore. Indeed, most large fish species are pelagic (deep water), and many others (namely groupers) have been overfished to the point of invisibility so close to shore. I suspect the only reason large tarpon are still numerous is that they are not considered “good eatin’”–there is no money to made in killing them. They are, however, considered a “fun fight” by sportfishermen, so this species takes a few lumps for the benefit of human amusement.
Boca Chica Beach: Manmade Beaches vs. Rocky Shores
Key West’s beaches are man-made with imported sand.
Dead sea grass washes up onto Key West's sandy beaches. The decomposing piles of vegetation smell like rotting eggs.
Manmade beaches are meant to attract tourists, not wildlife, but sea turtles do make use of Key West’s beaches for egg laying every summer. Unfortunately, the area where imported sand meets the sea becomes a wasteland in which no corals, sponges or seagrass beds thrive.
To see what the shores of the Lower Keys looked like before tourism, drive to the end of Boca Chica Road at Mile Marker 10 in Geiger Key. Follow the footroad past the shallow, sandy beach to a stretch of gorgeous, rocky shoreline.
Artistically piled rocks on the shore.
This is a fun place to look at small critters trapped in tide pools. Calerpa, sponge, and even some coral polyps grow in the submerged rock ledge. Just off the ledge wave acres of thriving seagrass beds. Seagrass beds house imperiled seahorses (and many other creatures) and feed endangered manatee (and more.) Seagrass also acts as a filtration system within the ecosystem, helping maintain water clarity and health.
A shrine to a sea-goddess?
Whale Hugging
If you are wondering what a dolphin’s skin feels like, the answer is wet latex. And no, the air from a whale’s blowhole doesn’t smell like anything.
My first experience with marine mammal rescue was in 2006, when a lone male bottlenose dolphin tried to beach itself across from the airport in Key West. I was working at the local wildlife rescue, and was the first responder on the scene. I marched into the water, fully dressed, and grabbed hold of the 7-foot wild animal hoping to keep its blowhole above water. *
Being eye to eye and skin-on-skin with a wild dolphin was an adrenaline rush: I knew that this was a very intelligent being–and also one that could easily do some serious damage. Luckily, he was docile, and I stayed with him until the Marine Mammal Rescue Team arrived in their fancy wetsuits with their waterproof headsets and I got out to get interviewed by the local paper. Then, I called everyone I’d ever met to tell them what had just happened. Later, the dolphin died: his necropsy revealed brain parasites.
On Thursday May 5, 2011, a pod of pilot whales–deep sea cetaceans– stranded of Cudjoe Key. Of the 18 recovered, 11 died. In the days that followed, 2 males were successfully released into deep water while the Marine Mammal Conservancy cared for 5 animals in the tranquil lagoon at the end of Blimp Road.
I was one of hundreds of people who volunteered with these animals. The five pilot whales–two calves, two females, and a very sick male–needed to be held around the clock for four days until they were well enough to transfer to the Marine Mammal Conservancy’s facility in Key Largo. I only spent a little over 8 hours with the animals, while several members of MMC were on the site 24-7 for days at a time. Amazingly, there was NO PAID STAFF in the lagoon–everyone who helped– from veterinarians to boat captains to people who held the whales to those who provided food and water–were volunteers!
Marine mammal strandings are mysterious. According to Scientific American, strandings are reported in ancient Greece as well as pilgrim New England, proving they are not a recent phenomena. Apparently, a sick or injured whale will seek shallow water where it can rest on the ground while keeping its blowhole above water. If the animal is high in the pod’s hierarchy (usually matriarchal females) the rest of the pod might follow. Underwater earthquakes, magnetic fields, underwater sonar, and red tides, or noise disrupting whales’ echolocation are other possible reasons these animals might strand.
The rescuer’s main job is to keep the animal’s blow hole above water: let it breathe and keep it from aspirating sea water. An animal securely held cannot do further damage to itself thrashing around on the seafloor or in the mangroves. The skin should be kept moist by “wetting, not petting:” you have to run water over the whales’ skin so it doesn’t dry out or sunburn, but if you rub with your hands its delicate skin can rub off. In the case of the pilot whales, two to four volunteers at a time supported the animal 24-7 while vets and MMC staff performed tests, administered fluids, and gavaged food.
Wild marine mammal rehabilitation is tricky. These are exceedingly large animals which generally require vast expanses of ocean in order to thrive. Rehabilitation methods can be fraught with controversy among people passionate about marine mammals. Some feel strongly that a whale or dolphin which cannot be returned to the wild should never be forced to live in human captivity, while others believe euthanizing an intelligent marine mammal, no matter how ill or injured, is simply unacceptable.
If you are wondering what a dolphin’s skin feels like, the answer is wet latex. And no, the air from a whale’s blowhole doesn’t smell like anything. I’m told an unpleasant-smelling blowhole can indicate illness. On my first night with the pilot whales, the two calves were talkative, emitting a constant stream of high-pitched whistles, buzzes and clicks. I found the sounds heartbreaking, and I had to keep reminding myself that I did not understand their intention, and these weren’t necessarily distress calls. On the second evening I spent with them, they were much quieter.
Finally, on Tuesday, May 10, the pilot whales were transferred via refrigerated Publix truck to the Key Largo facility where the sickly male was euthanized. The fate of the calves and the two females are still uncertain, and volunteers are still working around the clock to save them. I will probably take the four-hour drive at least once to the facility in the weeks and months that follow–no one knows how long the rehabilitation effort will take or if it will be successful. If you are up for the physical challenge (pilot whales are thousands of pounds and shifts are 4 hours long) and you live near Key Largo, you should consider the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience of knowing you helped a marine mammal with your own two hands (and legs and back). Contact the Marine Mammal Conservancy at 305-451-4774.
*I completed a “Basic Stranding Response and Animal Handling” Workshop with the Florida Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team.
Urbanization and the Key Deer
*The following in an excerpt from a larger work-in-progress titled: Wild-ness in the Florida Keys and the Everglades: A Guide for Nature Lovers
Big Pine and its sister-island, No Name sit approximately 25 miles East of Key West along the Overseas Highway. It’s a sleepy little area without much to attract tourists – except this: some animals which inhabit Big Pine and its surrounding islands live no where else in the world! A couple of these are super-cute animals, such as the shy lower Keys marsh rabbit. But the charismatic stars of Big Pine are, of course, the miniature Key deer.
In Big Pine and No Name, the economy and desirability of its real estate is dependent upon healthy, visible Key deer populations and large tracts of undeveloped land. Big Pine is the larger, more urban of the two islands–No Name has only 43 homes which, as of 2011, are still working on getting a public electric and water supply and a sewage system. The wildlife of Big Pine/No Name is the sole reason people live on and visit these tiny islands, so the animals are protected by law from being hunted, harassed, or harmed.
Instead of sticking to their little wildlife preserve, the Key deer inhabit the whole of the islands, grazing in suburban-style backyards, slurping from birdbaths, and eating people’s plants (they dine on 160 species of plant, some ornamental. Determined gardeners coven their prize specimens in chicken wire lest they wind up a Key deer’s lunch.) There is something delightfully magical about watching miniature deer, like living lawn ornaments, trotting around these rural neighborhoods like gentle pet dogs. Some studies have suggested that the Key deer may actually benefit from a certain amount of urbanization.
A perfect example: during my last trip to No Name my husband and I observed a family of four does in a front yard. The deer were eagerly drinking clean, fresh water supplied by a human via a birdbath. As we watched, a woman hauled out a trashbin full of fresh cuttings from her overgrown treetops–healthy, green leaves and berries the deer would not have been able to reach on their own. As soon as she turned to head back inside, the deer trotted over to the bin and began to dine in earnest Nowhere in the Keys is the balance between the needs of humans and the needs of wildlife more tenuous and interdependent than in Big Pine and No Name Key.
The Key deer have mostly lost their natural fear of humans. They come trotting up to cars, looking for handouts. Though it is illegal, people frequently feed the deer and pet them. On the one hand, friendly deer are a tourism-draw: even the most amateur of photographers can walk away from Big Pine with an up-close photograph of an adorable Key deer. The above photo was taken by my mother, who is no wildlife photographer (Ironically, my father is a wildlife photographer.) But feeding the deer lures them into dangerous situations where they get hit by cars, mauled by dogs, trapped by fences or canals, and made ill by the wrong foods.
* Reference: Impacts of Urbanization on Florida Key Deer Behavior and Population Dynamics, Patricia M. Harveson, Roel R. Lopeza, Bret A. Colliera and Nova J. Silvy, 2006
The Blue Hole: Big Pine Key
*The following in an excerpt from a larger work-in-progress titled: Wild-ness in the Florida Keys and the Everglades: A Guide for Nature Lovers
Big Pine’s own “Blue Hole” is the best place in the lower Keys to see American alligators. Originally dug out for road bed material during the 30′s and 40′s, an old quarry in the Key Deer Refuge called “Blue Hole” contains a lens of freshwater floating on top of heavier salt water. Hundreds of birds, turtles, and freshwater fish occupy or visit the Blue Hole. In October of 2005, storm surge from Hurricane Wilma introduced a number of marine fish to the quarry, namely tarpon, barracuda and mojarra. Biologists are impressed and surprised at how many of them have survived so long.
Big Pine is also the best place within a hundred miles to see Florida’s most emblematic reptiles: American alligators, which are a rarity in the lower Keys. The Hole’s resident American alligators are frequently spotted from the Blue Hole’s viewing platforms. Currently, two ‘gators inhabit the quarry. The resident female is small at just over 5 feet long, and she appears half-tame, usually hanging out right under the viewing platform, creating photo-ops: obviously, people have been feeding her though it is illegal. According to the signs, there is also a 7 foot long male which showed up to court the young female, and stayed. He is not sighted often.
The Blue Hole almost seems more like a zoo than a wildlife preserve. Due to the tiny size of the preserve and the fact that these are the only ‘gators around, these animals and their habits are well-known to locals. The Blue Hole’s resident female was brought in by Florida Fish and Wildlife in 2008 after a 9 foot long male called “Bacardi” died from ingesting a plastic toy turtle. His mate, “Cola,” was killed by poachers in 2006.
Unlike the owner of the deadly toy turtle, which we may presume was dropped in the water accidentally, the poachers were caught bragging about their conquest on Facebook. Someone turned them in, leading to their arrest and felony convictions. Attorneys for the young men responsible tried to offer up the “good ol’ boy defense:” This is Florida, after all, where fishin’ and huntin’ is a way of life! But the public was outraged. Not that the Florida Keys is particularly animal-welfare-oriented or pro-environment–but these particular ‘gators are vital to the local economy, drawing hundreds of visitors to Big Pine each year.
“Many good people believe that alligators were created by the Devil, thus accounting for their all-consuming appetite and ugliness. But doubtless these creatures are happy and fill the place assigned them by the great Creator of us all. Fierce and cruel they appear to us, but beautiful in the eyes of God. They, also, are his children, for He hears their cries, cares for them tenderly, and provides their daily bread.” –John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf
To find the Blue Hole, simply turn onto Key Deer Boulevard from U.S. 1 at Mile Marker 30.5, Bayside, then follow the signs. The Blue Hole is about two and a half miles down. There is no admission fee.
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To learn more about the lower Florida Keys, consider purchasing the brand-new 3rd edition of my guide: Key West: A Comprehensive Guide to Florida’s Southernmost City.
