The objectives are stated in bold, capital letters and numbered, so there’s no mistaking their importance.
OBJECTIVE 1: PROTECT, RESTORE AND ENHANCE THE DIVERSITY AND ABUNDANCE OF NATIVE FISH.
OBJECTIVE 2: PROTECT, RESTORE AND ENHANCE THE DIVERSITY AND ABUNDANCE OF NATIVE SHELLFISH.
OBJECTIVE 3: MONITOR AND PROTECT THREATENED, ENDANGERED AND VULNERABLE WILDLIFE.
Consider these objectives for Sarasota Bay when you read the next report on a record number of manatee mortalities in Florida or catch the news on local red tide blooms.
Consider these objectives when you come across a dead stingray on the beach or see a dead pelican entangled in fishing line at a pier.
Until the end of the month, the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program is collecting public comments on its draft comprehensive conservation and management plan, which can be downloaded at sarasotabay.org.
The plan identifies progress and failure in revitalizing the bay, listing threats and identifying strategies related to water quality, watershed habitats, and fish and wildlife.
Diverse bay habitats — wetlands, reefs, seagrass meadows and tidal tributaries — teem with fish, dolphins, manatees, sea turtles and crustaceans.
For years — 10,000 years — the bay’s population has sustained human life.
In return, we’ve overdeveloped and overharvested, polluted the water, introduced invasive species and spurred climate change.
Now we’re called on to deliver better returns to the bay.
SBEP’s draft plan calls for the following to protect and restore the diversity and abundance of native fish:
- Research to fill fisheries data gaps, including information on migration barriers, harmful algal blooms and climate change impact;
- Explore the effectiveness of stock enhancement — the raising of fish in a hatchery and releasing them to supplement existing populations;
- Promote angling practices that increase conservation and prevent marine waste.
SBEP’s draft plan calls for the following to protect, restore and enhance the diversity and abundance of native shellfish:
- Research on shellfish habitat needs and vulnerabilities to climate change;
- Research to understand the benefits of shellfish stock enhancement to improve water quality, habitat and native populations.
Sarasota Bay and tidal tributaries support oysters, scallops, crabs, shrimp, lobsters and clams, all of which benefit ecosystems.
To protect threatened, endangered and vulnerable wildlife, SBEP’s draft plan calls for continued monitoring of dolphins and manatees, as well as strengthening and enforcing protections.
The bay is home to about 160 resident bottlenose dolphins threatened by natural predators, such as sharks, but also boat collisions, illegal feeding, entanglement and ingestion of fishing gear and pollution.
The bay is home to Florida manatees threatened by cold snaps but also boat collisions, entanglement, habitat loss and pollution.
Fourteen islands in the bay system support 18-colonial-nesting species of birds — herons, egrets, spoonbills — threatened by entanglement and fishing hooks, human disturbance, pollution and habitat loss due to erosion from boat wakes, storms and sea level rise.
Audubon Florida keeps population counts of these birds and documented a decline in nesting pairs in the bay area from 2015 to 2019: 95 nesting pairs of snowy egrets in 2015 compared with 70 in 2019, 65 nesting pairs of little blue herons in 2015 and 15 in 2019; 75 nesting pairs of cattle egret in 2015 and 14 in 2019; 120 nesting pairs of white ibis in 2015 and zero in 2019.
“Efforts to reverse declines and stabilize populations of these and other birds include critical habitat protection and restoration,” reads the draft report.
To achieve this goal, the town of Longboat Key placed Whale Key and Town Islands in the conservation care of the Audubon Society.
“No trespassing” signs went up.
And, yes, birds came down to roost.