May 1 official start of sea turtle nesting season

Conservancy of Southwest Florida Sea Turtle Monitor and Protection Program

  • Through patrolling beaches, marking nests, tagging turtles, counting hatched eggs and educating the community, the Conservancy’s team of biologists and interns work to protect and monitor the success of loggerhead sea turtle nests.
  • Conservancy began the Florida Sea Turtle Monitoring and Protection Program in 1982
  • Now, in its 36th year, (2018) the program has saved more than 285,000 hatchlings.
  • The Conservancy’s work on Keewaydin Island is one of the longest running loggerhead turtle monitoring and research projects in the country.
  • We also work on sections of Naples’ beaches.

Interesting Loggerhead Facts

“The southern coast of Florida is one of only two epicenters in the world where loggerheads come to nest. It is our responsibility to protect this incredible species.”

— Conservancy Biologist Dave Addison

  • There are only two epicenters in the world where loggerheads nest. One is here, on Florida beaches (mostly in South Florida). The other is in the Middle East.
  • Only 1 in 1,000 sea turtles survives to adulthood.
  • Conservancy scientists have saved 265,000 hatchlings
  • Loggerheads ‘remember’ where they hatched. After about 25 years, when it is her time to nest, female loggerheads will return to the same beaches where they were hatched. This phenomenon is known as imprinting. (Imprinting is returning to the natal beach nest.)
  • Loggerheads are named for their relatively large heads and powerful jaws.

Loggerhead 101 Sea Turtle Facts:

Scientific Name: Caretta caretta

Adult Length: 3 feet

Weight: 250–300 lbs.

Lifespan: Greater than 50 years

Nesting season: May 1– October 31.

Habitat: Widely distributed throughout temperate and tropical regions of the ocean. Here in Florida, sea turtles forage in sea grass beds, rocky patches and reef areas, just like you can see in the Conservancy’s 6,000 gallon Patch Reef Aquarium inside the Dalton Discovery Center.

Diet: Primarily carnivorous- eating fish, crustaceans, jellyfish, and occasionally sea grass and algae.

Protection Status: Threatened in Florida, Endangered in other parts of the world

Threats: As hatchlings, sea turtles face several natural predators, but as adults their only predators are sharks and humans. Human threats include habitat loss, poaching, pollution, litter (such as plastic bags), commercial fishing, and boat collisions.

How you can help:

What you can do

Hatchlings follow the lightest part of the horizon (reflected light over the water) which is how they find their way from the nest to the water.

  • Turn of lights at beaches during nesting season
  • Don’t touch the animals
  • Clean up our beaches (turtles will eat and can choke on litter)
  • Use reusable bags instead of plastic bags,
  • support fisheries that use turtle safe devices on their nets,
  • slow-down in designated channel zones
  • Donate to the Conservancy’s sea turtle protection work at www.conservancy.org/seaturtles

Learn more about the Conservancy of Southwest Florida work with loggerhead sea turtles here: https://www.conservancy.org/our-work/science/wildlife/loggerheads.

you can also read about our Kemp’s ridley sea turtle work here: https://www.conservancy.org/our-work/science/wildlife/kemps-ridley

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Naples ranks again as a ‘best-performing city’

 

Naples has kept its title as a “best-performing city.”

The Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island metro area — or Collier County — ranks 18th this year on The Milken Institute’s index of “Best-Performing Cities” in the nation.

The index is an assessment of how areas are doing in creating jobs and stimulating economic growth. To come up with the rankings, researchers with Milken, a nonprofit think tank, analyzed data in more than 400 metro areas, including growth in jobs, wages and technology output.

“It’s considered a venerable source of information. Companies like to see that; companies that are searching for places to go, they like that. It adds credibility to what we are doing,” Kentner said.

Rankings like this can open many doors, he said, getting the attention of site consultants and selectors for businesses wanting to expand or relocate.

In an email, Minoli Ratnatunga, the Milken Institute’s director of regional economics research and a co-author of the report, said even metros that are booming can drop in rank if other areas are “surging even farther forward.”

“A one-place drop is not a significant change,” she said.

The Naples area has landed in the Top 20 rankings for three years in a row.

The metro ranked fourth in the nation for its job growth and 15th for its high-tech gross domestic product, or output, for the years 2011-16. The area came in 16th for its five-year wage growth (for 2010-15).

“Job growth in the Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island region has been very impressive over the one- and five-year periods we examined for our index,” Ratnatunga said. “The region added jobs at a faster rate than all but two large metros we looked at in 2016.”

The report notes the metro area has strong tourism and retail sectors — and nice weather and scenic views that help drive population growth. However, it warns that tourism and retail are “vulnerable to business cycles and natural disasters.”

According to the report, Walmart is the second-largest employer in the metro, with more than 1,700 workers in the area. Thanks to a growing population of retirees, the health care industry also remains strong, with a trio of companies — Arthrex, HCR ManorCare and the NCH Healthcare System — employing more than 5,500 people locally.

The housing sector continues to do well, too. The report points out population growth has driven the development of multifamily projects, helping to create more construction jobs. However, it notes the growing concerns about housing affordability in the region. Rental rates are on the rise, and the median sales price for existing single-family homes, or resales, increased 83.5 percent from 2011-16.

“Depending on how the region’s core industries fare in the next year or so, the Naples metro could improve its ranking slightly,” Ratnatunga said. “However, concerns over housing affordability and cost of living may slow the population growth that has been a key asset for the region.”

The Provo-Orem metro area in Utah took the top spot by a wide margin in this year’s rankings. Its performance was described as “stellar” across the nine indicators used for the study. High-tech industries have been a key driver that placed it first in one-year and five-year job growth rates in the nation.

More: Naples ranks as one of the best small town food scenes

More: Company ranks Florida sixth for affordable, entertaining retirement

Florida metros made a good showing in this year’s report, claiming six of the Top 25 spots. According to the report, those economies “hit their stride a little later than other regions of the country.”

“While it is encouraging to see the ascent of a number of Florida metros on our index, it is important to note that in part, this reflects the state’s slower recovery than in other parts of the country,” Ratnatunga said.

In the state the highest-ranked metro was North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, at No. 6. It was followed closely by Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, weighing in at No. 7.

While the metro that includes Fort Myers has also experienced strong job growth, it didn’t perform as well on metrics as other areas did for its short-term job increases (from August 2016 to August 2017). The area dropped from No. 15 last year to 30 this year.

“The Fort Myers region also has a smaller high-tech sector that has only begun to grow in more recent years,” Ratnatunga said.

 

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Post Irma Update!

 

Contrary to the reports, Southwest Florida is alive and well with the exception of a few areas. We are continued to be amazed by our area and the people that live in it! We are now 9 days post Irma and have assessed a good number of homes for our clients in Naples, Marco Island and Bonita Springs. It is amazing that the majority of homes have little to no damage.

Southwest Florida is an amazing place where the people pitch in to help their neighbors and our construction is built to withstand high winds. We are protected by mangrove wetlands that help with any surge. It is truly paradise!

Naples Named Cleanest City in America

Realtor.com study calls Naples nation’s least polluted community

BY JUSTIN PAPROCKI

PHOTO BY R.J. WILEY

 

Clean air, clean water and plenty of untouched nature. That’s what makes Naples the cleanest city in the country, according to a recent study.

Realtor.com judged metro areas on five criteria: greenhouse gas emissions, number of superfund sites, air quality, factory-released chemicals and water quality. Naples came out on top. Not too far behind was Ocala, which came in third. Five West Coast cities made the top 10.

Southwest Florida does have its environmental concerns, but compared to elsewhere, we’re living the good life here. One of the major reasons: protected land. Realtor.com points to swaths of untouched land in the Everglades that keep Collier County green.

The most-polluted places actually tended to be in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, i.e. the places people escape to come to Naples (New York, Philadelphia, Chicago).

For the full list of most and least polluted, click here.

Mackle Park Community Center Progress

Mackle Community Center

In 2009 City staff proposed a new two story 40,000 sq. ft. Mackle Center building, at a cost of 12 million dollars.  Over the years the scope/size of the project has been reduced first to a single story 20,000 sq. ft. building and now to a basic 16,070 sq. ft. building (no gym), estimated at a cost of no more than 3.5 million dollars.

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“Savage” Bridge Officially Named

Herb Savage Bridge

Key Island architect Herb Savage and his wife Emily honored for civic contributions

The community came together to honor Savage for many years of service to the island. In celebration of our newest bridge being named after him, it is one small way to recognize his dedication to growth and development on Marco Island dating back to the 1960’s. He also held an important role as one of the team of professionals who helped craft the vision of the Mackle family.

The former Smokehouse Bay Bridge will now be known as the Herbert R. Savage Bridge in his honor.

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