Dead fish on the shore gets attention — national media devotes coverage, gubernatorial candidates jab and dodge, business owners fret and tourists fear.
But when the dead fish are clear and the red tide dissipates, so does concern for the health of our waters.
All locals might not be fortunate enough to have water views from our homes, but it’s safe to guess that we’re minutes away — by foot or car — from a bay, a river, a canal, the Gulf. I can walk two minutes and stand at the shore of one bay, drive 10 minutes and be at the shore of another bay, add five minutes — during off-hours — and sit on a Gulf beach.
Among my multiple identities, I’m a resident of the Greater Sarasota Bay Watershed and the way I maintain my habitat impacts bay habitats.
The Sarasota Bay Estuary Program earlier this summer published a draft document examining the health of Sarasota Bay, exploring progress and setback in bay recovery and identifying goals and actions, including a plan to restore shoreline, wetland and bay habitats.
SBEP reports progress with restoring seagrass, increased numbers of live oysters in tidal creeks, as well as projects to improve freshwater wetlands, restore dunes, remove exotic plant species, establish bird habitats, conserve land and prescribe burns — all to benefit the bay.
But more must be done to improve fisheries, enhance coastal wetlands, improve shoreline resiliency, protect freshwater wetlands and restore seagrass habitat to boost the bay’s health.
“Healthy bay water quality and wildlife require a diversity of interconnected habitats in the watershed … that support the full suite of natural processes to sustain life,” SBEP’s report states.
Goals include:
- Restore creek and canal flowways to mimic natural stream functions.
Naturalizing people-made canals and altered waterways provides better habitat for fish and wildlife.
- Enhance coastal wetlands by installing living shorelines, protecting spoil islands, reducing or eliminating mangrove trimming.
Historically, marshes were drained and dredged for buildings and seawalls, fragmenting and impairing the bay’s coastal wetlands.
- Increase upland and freshwater wetland habitat.
Since the 1950s, urban development has degraded, fragmented and replaced upland forests and freshwater wetlands. So today, the SBEP area has just 5,599 acres of freshwater wetlands and 4,648 acres of forested uplands.
- Restore hard bottom and seagrass habitat in the bay by creating new reefs, mapping seagrass and implementing water quality strategies to increase productive and resilient seagrass.
Seagrass meadows provide food and habitat for finfish and shellfish and seagrass is vital in cycling nitrogen and carbon, as well as beneficial to reducing wave action and coastal erosion.
But seagrass acreage did not meet restoration targets in most bay segments in 2020.
- Protect beaches and dunes for wildlife and resiliency.
The barrier island beaches provide critical habitat for the marinelife and wildlife of Sarasota Bay but they face threats from erosion, invasive species, pollution, recreation and, yes, the grooming that makes the white sand look so good.
Grooming also eliminates beach wrack and beaches without wrack have diminished habitat — lower species richness and abundance of the invertebrates and fewer shorebirds.
On the web
The Sarasota Bay Estuary Program’s 208-page comprehensive conservation and management plan can be downloaded at sarasotabay.org.