Rain in North Central Florida has dampened wildfire season
North Central Florida is into its annual wildfire season and so far, so good.
Most of the Florida peninsula from about Citrus County on the Gulf coast through southern Marion to Flagler on the Atlantic is either abnormally dry or in a drought.
Areas above that line, however, have had plenty of rain.
But with a month or so until the start of the typical summer weather pattern, the region is not out of the wildfire woods yet, said Ludie Bond, wildfire mitigation specialist with Florida Forest Service Waccasassa district headquartered in Gainesville.
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April 14, 2021
Three months into 2021, 613 Florida manatees are dead – more than triple the yearly mortality averaged over the past five years.
Federal regulations improved manatees’ status from “endangered” to “threatened” back in 2017, but was this move premature?
Though the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has not examined many of the dead mammals, the manatees currently seem to be starving.
These aquatic herbivores referred to as “sea cows” graze upon seagrasses and other underwater flora for up to eight hours daily. Through increased nutrient loads of nitrogen and phosphorous, algal blooms in the Indian River Lagoon block sunlight and cause such manatee-supporting vegetation to die.