Sciency Thoughts: Lee County

Showing posts with label Lee County. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 October 2019

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission breaks up a Turtle-smuggling ring.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has announced it has broken up a Turtle-smuggling ring operating out of Fort Myers in Lee County. The commission became involved in the case after a man and woman were stopped for a traffic offence in Charlotte County in May 2019, and were found to be in possession of 42 small Three-striped Mud Turtles, Kinosternon baurii, one Florida Softshell Turtle, Apalone ferox, and a 30 cm Alligator, Alligator mississippiensis. Concerned by this the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office contacted the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who's enquiries led them to raid a property in Fort Myers in August where they seized several hundred more Turtles.

Turtles seized by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in a raid on a property in Fort Myers in August 2019. The News Press.

The Turtles seized in Fort Myers include Florida Box Turtles, Terrapene carolina bauri, Eastern Box Turtles, Terrapene carolina carolina, Striped Mud Turtles, Kinosternon baurii, Florida Mud Turtles, Kinosternon subrubrum, Chicken Turtles, Deirochelys reticularia, Florida Softshell Turtles, Apalone ferox, Gulf Coast Spiny Softshell Turtles, Apalone spinifera aspera, Spotted Turtles, Clemmys guttata, and Diamondback Terrapins, Malaclemys terrapin. In addition body parts from a Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle, Lepidochelys kempii, and a Black Bear, Ursus americanus, and a quantity of narcotics were confiscated.

Six hundred of the Turtles were returned to the wild almost immediately, and twenty four more after a period in quarantine, with another three hundred being monitored by the Sanibel-Captive Conservation Foundation, and a small number from species non native to Florida passed to a captive wildlife licensee.

Turtles seized by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in a raid on a property in Fort Myers in August 2019. The News Press.

Two men were arrested during the raid, Michael Boesenberg, 39, who is suspected of organising Turtle trapping across Florida and neighbouring states, and Michael Clemons, 23, of selling, possessing and transporting Turtles taken from the wild. It is thought that the Turtles were intended for export to Asia, where captive Turtles can be worth hundreds of dollars in the pet trade.

Monday, 3 June 2019

Sphyrna mokarran: Pregnant Great Hammerhead found dead on Captiva Island, Florida.

A female Great Hammerhead Shark, Sphyrna mokarran, was found dead by local residents on Capriva Island in Lee County, Florida, on Saturday June 2019. Recognising that the animal was pregnant fisherman Elliott Sudal cut the Shark open to attempt to save her young, but all 27 babies found inside her were found to be dead. The cause of the Shark's death is being investigated by the University of Miami and the Beneath the Waves organisation; it is understood that she showed no signs of having been caught or entangled in fishing gear, and that there is a possibility that she may have died due to a pregnancy complication.

Fisherman Elliot Sudal with a dead Hammerhead Shark on a Captiva Island beach on Saturday 1 June 2019. NBC2.

Great Hammerheads are found throughout the world's tropical oceans, but their numbers have declined rapidly in recent years due to overfishing for their fins, which are used in Shark's Fin Soup.For this reason they are classified as Endangered under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, and are federally protected in the US, which means individuals targeting the species can face criminal charges with severe consequences.

Fisherman Elliot Sudal with a dead Hammerhead Shark on a Captiva Island beach on Saturday 1 June 2019. NBC2.

Tuesday, 5 March 2019

Tornadoes kill at least twenty three people in Lee County, Alabama.

At least twenty three people have been killed, about twenty more are missing, and more than fifty people injured after a series of tornadoes touched down in the community of Beauregard in Lee County Alabama, on Sunday 3 March 2019, with other storms reported to have caused damage across eastern Alabama and neighbouring parts of Georgia. At least two to the fatalities were children, with the youngest victim reported to have been only six years old.

Emergency services in the community of Beauregard in Lee County, Alabama, following a series of tornado strikes on Sunday 3 March 2019. AP.

Tornadoes are formed by winds within large thunder storms called super cells. Supercells are large masses of warm water-laden air formed by hot weather over the sea, when they encounter winds at high altitudes the air within them begins to rotate. The air pressure will drop within these zones of rotation, causing the air within them so rise, sucking the air beneath them up into the storm, this creates a zone of rotating rising air that appears to extend downwards as it grows; when it hits the ground it is called a tornado.

Tornadoes can occur anywhere in the world, but are most common, and most severe, in the area of the American mid-west known as 'Tornado Ally', running from Texas to Minnisota, which is fuelled by moist air currents from over the warm enclosed waters of the Gulf of Mexico interacting with cool fast moving jet stream winds from the Rocky Mountains. Many climatologists are concerned that rising temperatures over the Gulf of Mexico will lead to more frequent and more severe tornado events.