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).
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     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/).
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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 trying to gain some respite.  The tight-knit social structure of the animals then may lead to other animals following their sick brethren into shallow water.  Another theory is that the animals may get move in to shallow areas inadvertently and are unable to successfully navigate back out using echolocation.  Whatever the reason, this is actually just one of several strandings that have happened in Florida in the last few years.  Through the efforts of some very hard working park service staff and volunteers, it is thought that upwards of half of the animals may have survived the rescue effort.  Eleven whales were later found on a beach in the Lower Keys, thought to be from this group.  They may have survived the rescue effort but may have been too weakened to survive for a trip back out to deeper waters.  Before this post depresses you too much, remember that short-finned pilot whales are species of least concern for conservation efforts, meaning that they are an abundant animal and the loss of 20-30 animals shouldn’t be detrimental to the persistence of the species.  Also, and perhaps more importantly, this was a natural event, and a couple dozen whale bodies (these guys can get to be almost 20 feet long!) will feed a lot of smaller animals out in the shallow sandbars.  I heard several reports of small sharks feeding on the carcasses, and the whales will also provide food for countless crabs, fishes, and seabirds, thus providing an important nutrient subsidy for a large stretch of the food chain.

Male hooded warbler

Orb weaver eating an anole. Awesome.

Male painted bunting

This guest post was written by Phil Matich, a graduate researcher in Dr. Mike Heithaus' lab at Florida International University.
After only a month, the shark has grown 2 cm and gained 1 kg in body mass; the scar from the surgery has completely healed, and one of the sutures had already dissolved, and the other marks from tissue collections were healing (see the picture of the fin clip).  On the second set, we caught three more sharks (74, 81, and 104 cm TL), and acoustically tagged the 81 cm TL shark to track its movements.  After only a few hours on the water he had caught five sharks and deployed two transmitters!  On the third set we caught another shark (104 cm TL), and had a surprise on the line - a 2 meter alligator, which is the first gator we’ve caught after >3000 longline hooks deployed in the estuary.  It was pretty skinny and very docile, so it was probably sick and in poor condition and just looking for an easy meal.  We cut the line and the hook that was stuck in its mouth will rust out in the next month or so - I wasn’t going to reach my hand in to try and get it out.  Overall, it was an awesome day!  And, we got to hang out with a dolphin for a little while on the ride back.  I’m looking forward to more days like this in the future.