Temp: 28°c

Today we learned about the key invasive species of Florida and the Everglades.
We also went Snorkelling scroll to bottom for more on that.

We had a talk from someone who works with the management of the education and removal of the invasive species.

He outlined the key aspects to dealing with invasive species these are prevention early detection and rapid response.

He stated that there are currently over 600 invasive species found in Florida over 50 of which are reptiles, the reason for Florida having so many invasive species is the climate, these ideal conditions are often and improvement from those of the species native range.

The longer the species is present in an area the larger its area of invasion is likely to get, the worst of the invasive species is the plants.

Some of the more destructive invasive species found in Florida are:

The Nile Monitor: these ruin nests of any ground nesting animals these have been listed as a conditioned species so cannot be owned as pets.

The current population has been breeding since 2012 and the most effective way to remove them is killed them with guns from boats.

The Burmese Python: this species was discovered in Florida around the 1970’s and a breeding population was confirmed in the early 2000’s these are also listed as a conditional species and can reach up to 18ft long the longest being 18.8ft, they have increasingly been found in south west Florida.

Rock Python: 30 of these python have been caught and there is a good chance they are in decline.

Other snake species are as follows: Green and Yellow Anaconda and the Boa Constrictor.

A highly destructive but annoyingly cute looking lizard is the Argentine Black and white Tegus these are from South America. Their diet varies and they have the ability to over winter in burrows. The tegu is a listed species and is endanger in its native range so cannot be harmed only removed. There is little known about the agricultural impact the tegu could have.

The Black Spiny Tail Iguana is questionable to if it’s invasive or not, they are omnivorous and share the burrows of Burrowing Owls, this may be problematic when the owls have eggs, they have been known to eat Gopher Tortoise eggs.

There are 3 known invasive species of Chameleon these are the Oustalet, Veiled and Panther.

Non-native deer present in Florida are the Barasingha, Axis and the Red Stag of which the Barasingha is an endangered species so cannot be killed.

There are several initiatives in place to manage the invasive species such as canal surveys and fish tournaments to attempt to reduce numbers.
The python challenge is another way to educate people into what pythons look like and how to catch and kill them. The duration of the challenge is roughly a month and gives a large amount of data to the location of the invasive pythons.

Enough facts time for something awesome SNORKELLING!

Water Temp: 22°c

After a long day of being educated it was decided we would go snorkelling at from the Florida Keys this was a long drive especially after being ill but I was not going to miss it. We arrived at the booking place well in advance and had to kill some time so Sam Whittaker and I went exploring through the bushes finding Anoles everywhere we even came across several locust/grasshopper type bugs one we believe is a Katydid.

After a while the last bus turned up and we set off to the keys where we eventually (girls take ages to change) boarded the boat to head out to the sea, I went up on top deck it was beautiful, on arrival to the reef we were given a safety talk and additionally to that a set of rules which were in place to preserve the reef this was very good to hear them taking so much good care of the reef. So after diving in GoPro in hand it didn’t take me too long to find some fish and I was diving and filming continuously, I even saw a Barracuda, although by far the best sighting of the day must have been the Nurse Shark.