Another Stranding...

There was yet another stranding today. Sabrina Bowen came out from NOAA to help me. We did a pretty complete necropsy and reviewed some of our recent strandings. The one we had Saturday, the Dwarf Sperm Whale, was pregnant. How sad.



There's really not much to say; the red tide continues to take it's toll on the marine life in the area. The best we can do is learn as much as possible from each stranding.

It was great to spend time with someone who does this all the time -- I finally felt like I was really learning EXACTLY what we're supposed to do. Onward and upward!

Happy Halloween!

It's been a very strange day here, and a strange few weeks. We're still getting lots of strandings, though now it's marine mammals and sea turtles -- I had one today at Perdido Key. I lost my keys in the sand, nearly got in an accident, got hit in the face with some high speed black flies (courtesy of added ATV forward motion), got chased by a brown pelican, and generally, had an eerie experience in places...

This is a sad photo -- I never put strandings on here, and that seems odd as I spend so much time on them lately. This turtle had no apparent injuries or anomalies -- likely, it was just a victim of the red tide. It's a respiratory irritant for them too. This loggerhead (Caretta caretta) was about the fifth turtle in ten days.



Yesterday, we had a live stranding of a snapping turtle on the north shore at Fort Pickens. His eye was injured, and he was in too salty a place to survive, but these are hardy critters, so we just moved it to a brackish marsh near the old fort. Our fingers were the major concern -- these turtles will snap one off if you place a hand too close to it's jaws!



A great blue heron on the north shore of Perdido today had nothing better to do than pose for the camera, so I got a few good pics. They do seem to pose professionally at times.



Otherwise, life isn't very Halloweeny today...

No New Dead Fish!!!

How sad is that for a blog title? It's the highlight of my week though -- it was sunny and gorgeous in west Florida, and there were no new red tide casualties. Yes, I had to necropsy the Fort Pickens dolphin, but otherwise, life was good! It almost feels like fall, or what passes for fall in the sunshine state.

My writing has been so morbid lately that I feel kind of guilty. It was such a strange week. To top it off, yesterday we lost the Fort Pickens generator to a lightning strike and the computers and phones are still not functional at HQ and the fire cache. The Park has returned to earlier days without internet or telephone. It's been rather nice! Email on Tuesday might be scary though...