LOOE KEY REEF, Fla. — A Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) hides in the shadows of the coral overhang to the right of the giant barrel sponge (Xestospongia muta). Other species present include brown clustered tube sponge (Agelas wiedenmayeri), slimy and other sea plumes (Antillogorgia americana, Antillogorgia spp.), black sea rods (Plexaura homomalla), great star coral (Montastraea cavernosa), lesser starlet coral (Siderastrea radians), blue hamlet (Hypoplectrus gemma), and juvenile bluehead (Thalassoma bifasciatum). (David M. Lawrence)

MECHANICSVILLE, Va.—The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed listing the Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The proposal, published in the Federal Register on Sept. 2., 2014, was developed in response to an Aug. 31, 2010, petition by WildEarth Guardians to list the Nasau grouper, Goliath grouper (E. striatus) and speckled hind (E. drummondhayi) as either endangered or threatened.

After a lengthy scientific review, NOAA found that the Nassau grouper merited threatened status.

While the species still occupies its historical range, spawning aggregations have been reduced in size and number due to fishing pressure. The lack of adequate management measures to protect these aggregations increases the extinction risk of Nassau grouper. Based on these considerations, described in more detail in this proposed rule, we conclude that the Nassau grouper is not currently in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, but is likely to become so within the foreseeable future. (NOAA 2014)

NOAA is now seeking comments to help it develop its final rule and to help it designate critical habitat for the species. Those who wish to submit should do so by Tuesday, December 31, 2014.  Those wishing to comment may do so electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (http://www.regulations.gov; instructions on how to do so are provided here). Otherwise, they may mail or hand-deliver their comments to:

Species Conservation Branch Chief
Protected Resources Division
NMFS Southeast Regional Office
263 13th Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701-5505
Attn: Nassau Grouper 12-month Finding

The Nassau grouper was once a mainstay of the commercial grouper industry, but declines in catches have rendered it “commercially extinct.”

I grew up in Louisiana, not terribly far from Florida on a global scale, but my home town of Shreveport in northwest Louisiana might as well been in a different universe from the Gulf Coast given the condition of the roads between the northern and southern parts of the state. Once you did get to south Louisiana—anywhere in the vicinity of I-10—Florida was little more than a stone’s throw away.

One year my family made it, though. We spent a few days camping at Grayton Beach State Park on the Gulf Coast in the Florida Panhandle. The main thing I remember is a pine tree that had been repeatedly knocked down by hurricanes, yet kept finding a way to reach again for the sky—its curved trunk had been bent and buried at least five times, yet each time it found a way to reach again for the sky.

I made another pass or two through the Florida Panhandle over the next 15 or so years—usually cutting through there as an out-of-the way change of scenery between Louisiana and Georgia, where my uncle’s family lived.

Throughout that time, though, the only thing about Florida that made much of an impression on me was that lone pine tree.

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. — I don’t know if these are impenetrable, but I would hate to have to chase someone, or run from someone, through the palmetto-and-briar undergrowth of the pine islands like here in Long Pine Key. (David M. Lawrence)

That changed in 1990. I was working for Jean Chesson and her consulting company in Washington, D.C. Jean was always interested in new opportunities for work with her main client, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the agency had just launched its Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP).

The goal of EMAP was to monitor ecological status of ecosystems and trends in an effort to identify environmental problems before they reached crisis proportions. In an effort to identify promising phenomena to watch, the agency held a conference on ecological indicators in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in October 1990.

Jean and I attended. She even arranged for us to arrive a day early so that I could go on a pre-conference tour of Everglades National Park.

I knew about the Everglades, intellectually at least. I am sure I had read enough books and had watched enough nature programs on television to have a visual image of what to expect. But the two-dimensional images—whether printed on paper or created by the flickering lights in a vacuum tube—were poor preparation for the impact the “River of Grass” had on me as I first saw it spread before my eyes on a muggy autumn day.

As part of the tour we saw alligators along the Anhinga Trail; walked through the palmetto scrub of the pine “islands that dot the park; viewed two alligators in a territorial tiff in a reconstructed wetland called Eco Pond; and took a boat ride on Florida Bay. To the south, I could see a series of low, mangrove-bounded islands: the Florida Keys.

I fell in love with the Everglades—with the environment of South Florida—that day.

BISCAYNE NATIONAL PARK, Fla. — Scientists and journalists mingle on a boat trip to see corals in Biscayne Bay on July 6, 2008. (David M. Lawrence)

Nearly 20 years later, I attended another conference in Fort Lauderdale, the International Coral Reef Symposium. I attended as a journalist, looking for a paid writing assignment or two. None materialized.

But the trip was far from a waste. I took another field trip: one for the journalist corps covering the symposium to Biscayne National Park. It involved another boat trip, this time to allow us the opportunity to snorkel on the coral reefs in the bay.

The reef wasn’t in terribly good shape. Years of pollution, development and storm damage had taken their toll. But there was enough of a reef—some stony corals and plenty of Gorgonians—to have the kind of effect on me that the Everglades had in 1990 … and more.

Because, while I did not get any reporting assignments to cover the conference, I left with a fire inside to do what I could to inspire our society to do more to improve our relationship with the sea.

Image Gallery: Anhinga Trail

Image Gallery: Florida Bay

Image Gallery: Eco Pond

Image Gallery: Long Pine Key

Image Gallery: Biscayne National Park

LOOE KEY REEF, Fla. — A school of Yellowtail snapper (Ocyurus chrysurus) hides among the arms of elkhorn corals (Acropora palmata) near Mooring 18 at Looe Key Reef on Aug. 16, 2014. Note the dead skeletons of elkhorn coral on the left side of the image. (David M. Lawrence)

In addition, the agency found that two Caribbean species previously listed as threatened, elkhorn and staghorn corals (Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis, respectively), still warrant threatened status.

The 15 Indo-Pacific species listed include 11 additional Acroporid species—Acropora globiceps, A. jacquelineae, A. lokani, A. pharaonis, A. retusa, A. rudis, A. speciosa, A. tenella, Anacropora spinosa, Isopora crateriformis, and Montipora australiensis—as well as Euphyllia paradivisa, Pavona diffluens, Porites napopora, and Seriatopora aculeata.

The five new Caribbean species listed are pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), boulder star coral (Orbicella annularis, formerly classified as Montastraea annularis), O. faveolata (formerly M. faveolata), O. franksi (formerly M. franksi), and rough cactus coral (Mycetophyllia ferox).

The list of 22 species is significantly reduced from the original petition—filed by the Center for Biological Diversity on Oct. 20, 2009—to list 83 species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The list was whittled down to 66 when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published its proposed final rule on Dec. 7, 2012.

NOAA said it reduced the number of protected species further because:

• We received and gathered new general and species specific information.
• Public comments helped us refine the way we apply all the available information to determine vulnerability to extinction of each species considered.

In a story on the NOAA Fisheries website, the agency summarized the status and significance of and threats facing coral reefs today:

Coral reefs are critical to the health of marine ecosystems and they face severe threats. Coral reefs world-wide have declined significantly—some individual species have declined by at least 90 percent. Healthy coral reefs provide shoreline protection for coastal communities and habitat for a variety of species, including commercially important fish. These benefits are lost when corals are degraded. As part of this rule-making process, NOAA identified a number of threats to coral ecosystems, some of the most serious of which are: impacts related to climate change (rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and disease), ecological effects of fishing, and poor land-use practices.

The agency said it will work with regional and local partners to find ways to mitigate the damage done to coral reefs today and to reverse the declines in the listed species. The recovery measures under consideration include watershed management, reduction of land-based pollution, and coral restoration.

The final rule, published in the Federal Register on September 10, took effect on October 10. The ext of the final rule can be downloaded from either here or here.

A Florida manatee at Three Sisters Springs in the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge (Keith Ramos/USFWS).

The proposal, published in the Federal Register on July 2, states that an agency review of a petition requesting a change in the species’ status to change found that “… the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted.” [NOTE: An Acrobat version of the Federal Register notice can be downloaded here.]

The original petition to downlist the species was filed on December 14, 2012, by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a pro-business advocacy group, on behalf of Save Crystal River, Inc., a citizen’s group that claims to be committed to the maintenance and protection of “… the unique quality of life for all people in the communities of Crystal River and Citrus County.” A report in Florida Today said the group was motivated by concern over “… new manatee idle-speed rules and expanded manatee refuge areas in Kings Bay in Citrus County.”

USFWS is seeking comment on the petition. Those who wish to submit should do so by Tuesday, September 2, 2014.  Those wishing to comment may do so electronically using the Federal eRulemaking Portal (http://www.regulations.gov; instructions on how to do so are provided here). Otherwise, they may mail or hand-deliver their comments to:

Public Comments Processing
Attn: Docket No. FWS-R4-ES-2014-0024
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Headquarters
MS: BPHC
5275 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, VA 22041-3803

While it is true that manatee numbers have recovered substantially since the species was first protected under the endangered species act, one has to wonder about the wisdom of reducing the protections afforded the species and—as a result—allowing an increase in the human activities that pushed the species to the brink of extinction in the first place.

This blog, like another blog I recently created, Wanderers and Wonderers: Rambling through the Realm of the Exploration and Environmental Narrative, serves as an adjunct to my dissertation research in the Media, Art, and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

LOOE KEY REEF, Fla. — Chub (Xyphosus sp.), blue hamlet (Hypoplectrus gemma) and juvenile bluehead wrasse (Halichoeres garnoti) hide among the shelter of the arms of the elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) on Looe Key Reef near Mooring 11 on Monday, Aug. 18, 2014. (David M. Lawrence)

My dissertation project is an ecoliterary project, using Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There as a model, that will focus on the life of Looe Key Reef specifically, ocean ecosystems in general, and on the ethics of our relationship with the natural—both aquatic and terrestrial—world.

The older blog is a place where I share my critiques of and lessons from my readings of exploration and environmental narratives as well as in environmental ethics—all three are areas that will serve as models and inspiration for my dissertation work. The readings are selected from a wide range of historical eras, geographic regions, and ethical approaches.

This blog is more focused, grounded most firmly on the main location of interest for my dissertation—Looe Key Reef, the Florida Keys, and the surrounding regions (South Florida and the Everglades, the Gulf of Mexico, and the North Atlantic Ocean) that significantly affect the environment of the Keys.

The original idea for the blog was to serve as a platform to present digital content that complements my dissertation. That it will do.

But it will also serve as a platform for me to distill my observations from my all-too-infrequent trips to the Florida Keys, to share anecdotes from those travels, and to comment on intriguing or relevant news from the region while I research, write—and ultimately defend—my dissertation.