1 00:00:03,136 --> 00:00:04,037 Florida. 2 00:00:04,137 --> 00:00:07,674 It s an angler s paradise. 3 00:00:07,774 --> 00:00:11,211 Florida likes to think that we are the sport fish capital of the world. 4 00:00:11,311 --> 00:00:18,351 The value of recreational fisheries in Florida overall is around $12 billion a year. 5 00:00:18,451 --> 00:00:23,423 Tarpon and snook are two of the prized game fish the sunshine state is famous for. 6 00:00:23,523 --> 00:00:27,560 There s a couple of reasons that tarpon are so enticing. 7 00:00:27,660 --> 00:00:29,329 One is their massive size. 8 00:00:29,429 --> 00:00:34,701 They can grow upwards to 250 pounds, almost over seven feet long. 9 00:00:34,801 --> 00:00:38,271 It s a fish that migrates great distances. 10 00:00:38,371 --> 00:00:40,473 They live for a really long time. 11 00:00:40,573 --> 00:00:41,741 He s big. 12 00:00:41,841 --> 00:00:45,345 He jumps, it s kind of like almost the perfect fish. 13 00:00:45,445 --> 00:00:48,615 The adrenaline rush of it just really makes it super exciting. 14 00:00:48,715 --> 00:00:50,884 And a lot of fun. 15 00:00:50,984 --> 00:00:53,686 The great thing about snook is that they re ambush predators. 16 00:00:53,787 --> 00:00:57,657 So no matter what you re using to fish, you re going to see a show. 17 00:00:57,757 --> 00:01:03,463 It s so much fun to catch a snook, you ll see the bite and then they ll be airborne 18 00:01:03,563 --> 00:01:06,299 just like a tarpon. 19 00:01:06,399 --> 00:01:09,669 Without them Florida wouldn t be the same. 20 00:01:09,769 --> 00:01:16,709 When they are young, both tarpon and snook rely on murky mangrove-lined tidal creeks 21 00:01:16,810 --> 00:01:19,312 and backcountry ponds. 22 00:01:19,412 --> 00:01:22,315 I would call them essential fish habitat. 23 00:01:22,415 --> 00:01:27,020 Clearly as more and more people come here and it gets more and more developed, these 24 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,056 kinds of areas are going away. 25 00:01:30,156 --> 00:01:35,695 Mangrove forests are inhospitable to humans, and with nearly a thousand people moving to 26 00:01:35,795 --> 00:01:42,168 Florida every day, many have given way to coastal development. 27 00:01:42,268 --> 00:01:49,709 The biggest threats to coastal fisheries are habitat loss and degradation. 28 00:01:49,809 --> 00:01:54,347 Even with snook and tarpon being mostly catch and release, we re still seeing declines. 29 00:01:54,447 --> 00:01:59,018 What that tells us is it s much more than people fishing. 30 00:01:59,119 --> 00:02:05,058 Habitat is absolutely crucial. 31 00:02:05,158 --> 00:02:12,065 How do scientists study the habitat juvenile snook and tarpon need to thrive? 32 00:02:12,165 --> 00:02:40,827 And can habitat restoration help ensure the future of the fisheries? 33 00:02:40,927 --> 00:02:46,566 Major funding for this program was provided by The Batchelor Foundation, encouraging people 34 00:02:46,666 --> 00:02:52,438 to preserve and protect America s underwater resources. 35 00:02:52,539 --> 00:02:58,811 Additional funding was provided in loving memory of David G. Parrot, by the Parrot Family 36 00:02:58,912 --> 00:03:10,423 Endowment for Environmental Education 37 00:03:10,523 --> 00:03:19,165 In Charlotte Harbor, on Florida s southwest coast, tarpon is king. 38 00:03:19,265 --> 00:03:24,370 Charlotte Harbor is home to Boca Grande, which is the world-renowned tarpon capital of the 39 00:03:24,470 --> 00:03:25,371 world. 40 00:03:25,471 --> 00:03:27,173 We have so many fish. 41 00:03:27,273 --> 00:03:31,878 In 2010, there was an economic study that found that just locals fishing for tarpon, 42 00:03:31,978 --> 00:03:37,350 so not including guides or people coming in from other states, equated to $110 million 43 00:03:37,450 --> 00:03:40,753 annually that was put right into this community. 44 00:03:40,853 --> 00:03:46,125 And it s not just Boca Grande Pass that attracts anglers to this area. 45 00:03:46,226 --> 00:03:51,431 Miles of shallow mangrove creeks and flats are a favorite with fishermen as well. 46 00:03:51,531 --> 00:03:53,866 It s just a phenomenal place. 47 00:03:53,967 --> 00:03:58,071 If you close your eyes for 30 seconds, you could be completely lost if you don t know 48 00:03:58,171 --> 00:03:59,739 where you re going. 49 00:03:59,839 --> 00:04:03,276 And that to me is what I really love is getting in the back country like this. 50 00:04:03,376 --> 00:04:17,423 And just being in that raw Florida. 51 00:04:17,523 --> 00:04:24,998 Since 1989 biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, 52 00:04:25,098 --> 00:04:34,340 Charlotte Harbor Lab have tracked the abundance of recreational sport fishes and their prey. 53 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:40,179 This Fisheries Independent Monitoring Program consists of year-round, monthly sampling in 54 00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:41,681 Charlotte Harbor. 55 00:04:41,781 --> 00:04:44,784 We are a long-term monitoring program. 56 00:04:44,884 --> 00:04:51,257 Our sampling protocols stay the same so that we can track trends in populations over time. 57 00:04:51,357 --> 00:04:59,132 In Charlotte Harbor every month we re pulling roughly 120 nets. 58 00:04:59,232 --> 00:05:05,338 Since 2015 the scientists are also setting seine nets in tidal creeks that are important 59 00:05:05,438 --> 00:05:09,008 nurseries for juvenile snook and tarpon. 60 00:05:09,108 --> 00:05:15,848 We set the seine net in a semi-circle along the shoreline with one person at one end, 61 00:05:15,948 --> 00:05:20,053 and then the other person at the other end, they will walk along the shore until they 62 00:05:20,153 --> 00:05:21,621 meet. 63 00:05:21,721 --> 00:05:24,357 And then they will pull that net in and we will see what we ve caught. 64 00:05:24,457 --> 00:05:38,871 We have snook here, this fish is probably about a year old, we measure in standard length 65 00:05:38,971 --> 00:05:44,143 which is to the end of the vertical column right here, so this fish is 306 millimeters 66 00:05:44,243 --> 00:05:51,284 standard length, fork length is 352 and the total length is 387. 67 00:05:51,384 --> 00:05:56,522 We will identify all of the sport fish and select invertebrates. 68 00:05:56,622 --> 00:06:05,998 And then we will measure most of them, and we release them. 69 00:06:06,099 --> 00:06:08,034 Our sites are randomly selected. 70 00:06:08,134 --> 00:06:13,506 We re not going out to spots where fishermen know that there s snook or that there s 71 00:06:13,606 --> 00:06:14,540 no snook. 72 00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:20,179 We are trying to cover the entire estuary. 73 00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:24,751 And then we re stratifying by habitat type to make sure that we re sampling in a variety 74 00:06:24,851 --> 00:06:30,189 of habitats that these sport fish are using. 75 00:06:30,289 --> 00:06:39,098 This includes remote mangrove-lined ponds which are difficult to reach. 76 00:06:39,198 --> 00:06:58,484 We caught 11 tarpon and 6 Mayan cyclids. 77 00:06:58,584 --> 00:07:01,654 All the tarpon were all young of the year fish. 78 00:07:01,754 --> 00:07:10,062 What we do at each site is record the type of mangrove and how inundated these mangroves 79 00:07:10,163 --> 00:07:21,374 are at the time of sampling. 80 00:07:21,474 --> 00:07:26,813 The juvenile fish find their way into these backcountry waters in the summertime after 81 00:07:26,913 --> 00:07:33,486 the adult tarpon spawn offshore, and the adult snook spawn along beaches and the inlets to 82 00:07:33,586 --> 00:07:35,154 the estuaries. 83 00:07:35,254 --> 00:07:39,358 That s when we have our rainy season and that s when we have our highest tides. 84 00:07:39,459 --> 00:07:46,199 So, the larvae will ride those tides up the tidal creeks, and then they will swim to the 85 00:07:46,299 --> 00:07:48,034 headwaters of the tidal creeks. 86 00:07:48,134 --> 00:07:54,040 And they will swim around the mangrove roots to get into these back ponds, pretty much 87 00:07:54,140 --> 00:07:57,410 as far back into the landscape as they can go. 88 00:07:57,510 --> 00:08:03,483 There s a vast mangrove forest that separates these ponds from the creek. 89 00:08:03,583 --> 00:08:09,222 So, there s just a small amount of water that connects these coastal ponds to the tidal 90 00:08:09,322 --> 00:08:10,957 creeks. 91 00:08:11,057 --> 00:08:17,797 They re looking for shallow habitat with protection from predators and an abundance 92 00:08:17,897 --> 00:08:19,332 of prey fish. 93 00:08:19,432 --> 00:08:26,472 They also, when they are juveniles, can tolerate low oxygen water. 94 00:08:26,572 --> 00:08:32,178 Some of these remote ponds are completely cut off from the estuary during the dry season, 95 00:08:32,278 --> 00:08:39,218 giving juvenile fish a chance to outgrow predators that await them once access to the creek is 96 00:08:39,318 --> 00:08:46,526 restored. 97 00:08:46,626 --> 00:08:51,631 Another group studying tarpon and snook in the backcountry is the Bonefish and Tarpon 98 00:08:51,731 --> 00:08:53,399 Trust. 99 00:08:53,499 --> 00:08:57,069 It s estimated that we ve lost about 50 percent of our mangrove habitat in Florida. 100 00:08:57,169 --> 00:09:01,574 So, when you put it in terms of juvenile habitat, you ve lost about 50 percent of your juvenile 101 00:09:01,674 --> 00:09:03,509 habitat. 102 00:09:03,609 --> 00:09:08,114 To the extent that overall population of tarpon and snook is dependent on the amount of juvenile 103 00:09:08,214 --> 00:09:13,386 habitat, we ll never, ever have as big a population of those species as occurred a 104 00:09:13,486 --> 00:09:15,054 hundred years ago. 105 00:09:15,154 --> 00:09:19,292 We ve been spending decades managing the fishermen and we ve been losing habitat, 106 00:09:19,392 --> 00:09:22,261 and that s why fisheries are declining. 107 00:09:22,361 --> 00:09:25,665 You could take every human out of here, take every boat out of here. 108 00:09:25,765 --> 00:09:27,300 If you lost the habitat. 109 00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:29,368 You ve lost the fishery. 110 00:09:29,468 --> 00:09:33,439 One of the things that a lot of people don t understand about fisheries management is that 111 00:09:33,539 --> 00:09:37,310 it s entirely about how many fish are harvested, what their growth rates might be, and how 112 00:09:37,410 --> 00:09:39,111 many are left in the water. 113 00:09:39,211 --> 00:09:44,050 There s a real recognition of the need for habitat management as a part of fisheries 114 00:09:44,150 --> 00:09:45,051 management. 115 00:09:45,151 --> 00:09:47,019 It just hasn t been implemented. 116 00:09:47,119 --> 00:09:53,526 And we re at the point where if we don t implement it, the game s over. 117 00:09:53,626 --> 00:09:58,864 There are many steps that would need to be taken to make the leap to ecosystem-based 118 00:09:58,965 --> 00:10:03,336 management, and we re currently at the beginning phases of that. 119 00:10:03,436 --> 00:10:06,172 We are collecting the fish data. 120 00:10:06,272 --> 00:10:14,447 We re also collecting data on the types of habitats they are using. 121 00:10:14,547 --> 00:10:17,583 We are relaying that information to the fisheries managers. 122 00:10:17,683 --> 00:10:23,222 We think that working with FWC on snook and tarpon, because we know a lot about their 123 00:10:23,322 --> 00:10:25,291 habitat use, will teach us how to do that. 124 00:10:25,391 --> 00:10:31,030 So as new development happens or as different zoning happens, it can incorporate the importance 125 00:10:31,130 --> 00:10:40,406 of the fisheries. 126 00:10:40,506 --> 00:10:48,481 In the meantime, the scientists are focusing on restoring impaired habitats. 127 00:10:48,581 --> 00:10:54,887 One such project focuses on an area known as Coral Creek on the Cape Haze peninsula, 128 00:10:54,987 --> 00:10:58,691 just south of the community of Rotunda. 129 00:10:58,791 --> 00:11:04,230 This particular location was developed as residential community with saltwater access, 130 00:11:04,330 --> 00:11:08,834 which is why the footprint looks like a canal system that you would see in any other coastal 131 00:11:08,934 --> 00:11:10,403 community. 132 00:11:10,503 --> 00:11:15,141 The development project started in the 1960s and ran out of funding. 133 00:11:15,241 --> 00:11:18,210 So the canals were left abandoned. 134 00:11:18,310 --> 00:11:22,148 Currently the state of Florida owns the land and it's managed by our Florida Department 135 00:11:22,248 --> 00:11:25,818 of Environmental Protection or DEP. 136 00:11:25,918 --> 00:11:32,124 The initial restoration plan was to fill in the canals and return the topography to pine 137 00:11:32,224 --> 00:11:34,460 flatwoods. 138 00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:41,500 But then a group of state employees discovered tarpon rolling in one of the abandoned canals. 139 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:47,339 Knowing this, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which is the agency tasked 140 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:53,612 with carrying out the restoration, encouraged the biologists to come up with a new restoration 141 00:11:53,713 --> 00:11:57,416 design that would be beneficial for the fish. 142 00:11:57,516 --> 00:12:02,021 We brought the biologists together with the engineers. 143 00:12:02,121 --> 00:12:07,626 Everybody realized that this was a really unique opportunity, we could set the different 144 00:12:07,727 --> 00:12:13,165 canals into an experimental design to test what characteristics of the habitats were 145 00:12:13,265 --> 00:12:16,635 better for juvenile snook and juvenile tarpon. 146 00:12:16,736 --> 00:12:20,406 Because we had six different canals to work with we decided to go with three different 147 00:12:20,506 --> 00:12:23,843 design treatments and duplicate each of those. 148 00:12:23,943 --> 00:12:28,447 So two of the three designs have what we are referring to as a sill mouth. 149 00:12:28,547 --> 00:12:32,952 This means that the mouths of the canal are built up higher than the elevation of the 150 00:12:33,052 --> 00:12:34,854 rest of the canal. 151 00:12:34,954 --> 00:12:40,292 So that water is only flowing through during higher tide events or during storm surge events. 152 00:12:40,392 --> 00:12:44,130 What this does is prevent larger predators coming into these nursery habitats when the 153 00:12:44,230 --> 00:12:46,632 juveniles are coming in as larvae. 154 00:12:46,732 --> 00:12:52,538 We also wanted to look at depth of the water body because snook and tarpon tend to utilize 155 00:12:52,638 --> 00:12:55,541 slightly different sections of the ponds. 156 00:12:55,641 --> 00:12:59,512 The tarpon tend to hang out in the deeper holes and the snook tend to hang out more 157 00:12:59,612 --> 00:13:04,083 at the edges of the marsh. 158 00:13:04,183 --> 00:13:10,489 So in one of the sill mouth treatments, we included a deep hole right after the sill 159 00:13:10,589 --> 00:13:13,325 with a shallow meandering creek behind it. 160 00:13:13,425 --> 00:13:16,796 Now, the reason that we have the deep hole is because tarpon 161 00:13:16,896 --> 00:13:21,267 as the water gets colder on the surface, they can find warmer water down at the bottom of 162 00:13:21,367 --> 00:13:25,437 the hole, and vice versa, as it gets hot in the summer, they can cool off in the deep 163 00:13:25,538 --> 00:13:27,273 hole. 164 00:13:27,373 --> 00:13:28,607 Also there is some data that exists to show that they can go down into that deep hole 165 00:13:28,707 --> 00:13:30,442 kind of to evade the wading birds from picking them off. 166 00:13:30,543 --> 00:13:31,911 To test that deep hole theory, we created the second treatment to have the sill mouth, 167 00:13:32,011 --> 00:13:33,579 but without the deep hole. 168 00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:38,217 So it's shallow throughout with the meandering creek system on the tail end. 169 00:13:38,317 --> 00:13:41,554 The third and final treatment lacks that sill mouth. 170 00:13:41,654 --> 00:13:43,823 So the water is open and flowing year round. 171 00:13:43,923 --> 00:13:54,400 It also does have that deep hole again with the meandering creek system. 172 00:13:54,500 --> 00:14:00,806 To see how well the restoration is working, the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust scientists capture 173 00:14:00,906 --> 00:14:07,413 and tag tarpon and snook in all of the canals each month. 174 00:14:07,513 --> 00:14:12,284 Each snook and tarpon that we capture we scan to see if it previously has a tag implanted. 175 00:14:12,384 --> 00:14:17,423 This one doesn t so we then measure the standard length, 251, which is to the end 176 00:14:17,523 --> 00:14:24,864 of the vertebral column, we measure fork length, this guy is 280 millimeters, since this guy 177 00:14:24,964 --> 00:14:26,832 doesn t have a tag we ll go and put one in. 178 00:14:26,932 --> 00:14:33,873 First, we pull a couple of scales, make an incision, pop the tag right into the abdominal 179 00:14:33,973 --> 00:14:38,844 cavity and then we let them go. 180 00:14:38,944 --> 00:14:43,315 These pit tags work just like the microchips used in pets. 181 00:14:43,415 --> 00:14:48,621 Each tag has a unique ID number which the scientists record. 182 00:14:48,721 --> 00:14:54,393 By tagging the fish over a period of two years, the experts can determine how many tarpon 183 00:14:54,493 --> 00:14:58,797 and snook are present, if they survive, and how much they grow 184 00:14:58,898 --> 00:15:04,003 So, if we recapture a fish we are able to see how much it has grown from the time that 185 00:15:04,103 --> 00:15:07,172 we tagged it to the time to recapture. 186 00:15:07,273 --> 00:15:11,710 Growth is arguably one of the most important characteristics for a juvenile fish. 187 00:15:11,810 --> 00:15:15,080 As they get bigger, the more things they have available to eat and the fewer things are 188 00:15:15,180 --> 00:15:17,549 able to eat them. 189 00:15:17,650 --> 00:15:23,923 Past research has shown fish grow faster when they have access to a diverse diet. 190 00:15:24,023 --> 00:15:29,128 We do lavage, or as we like to call it in the field, puke them, pump their stomachs. 191 00:15:29,228 --> 00:15:32,765 We can look at what they are eating and compare to what s in the creeks and see if they 192 00:15:32,865 --> 00:15:34,667 have a particular preference. 193 00:15:34,767 --> 00:15:40,372 Because what we ve found in the past is that altered habitats have fewer prey available 194 00:15:40,472 --> 00:15:46,345 and the snook in the natural habitats are eating twice as diverse a diet. 195 00:15:46,445 --> 00:15:52,184 So right here we have a sailfin molly, but there are also some larger scales here. 196 00:15:52,284 --> 00:15:56,588 We take all this back to the lab, we can look at the scales and figure out what type of 197 00:15:56,689 --> 00:16:02,962 fish it came from and we can use that to recreate the diet. 198 00:16:03,062 --> 00:16:08,867 The scientists also use the pit tags to track the movements of the fish. 199 00:16:08,968 --> 00:16:14,940 Inside the entrance of each canal is an underwater antenna array that can detect the implanted 200 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:19,278 pit tags and identify fish as they swim by. 201 00:16:19,378 --> 00:16:22,548 Think of it as an automatic tollbooth system. 202 00:16:22,648 --> 00:16:28,053 These antenna arrays, they track the fishes movement in one canal, out the other canal. 203 00:16:28,153 --> 00:16:33,092 We ll be able to see if it s more productive for them to be secluded or if they need that 204 00:16:33,192 --> 00:16:37,396 ability to swim in and out through the open mouths of the canals. 205 00:16:37,496 --> 00:16:41,800 We also have an antenna array system that connects to the open estuary, which gives 206 00:16:41,900 --> 00:16:45,204 us the final tally on emigration. 207 00:16:45,304 --> 00:16:50,843 While the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust science team is targeting juvenile snook and tarpon 208 00:16:50,943 --> 00:16:58,450 in these restored canals, the F-W-C biologists count and measure all the fish found at the 209 00:16:58,550 --> 00:17:00,319 site. 210 00:17:00,419 --> 00:17:04,790 We have a couple different species of mojarra, we have some stripped mojarra, some Irish 211 00:17:04,890 --> 00:17:09,228 pompano, we caught a Gulf killeyfish, sailfin molly, gambusia holbrooki. 212 00:17:09,328 --> 00:17:11,930 These are all important forage fish for juvenile snook and tarpon. 213 00:17:12,031 --> 00:17:16,435 And we also got a juvenile snook in here as well. 214 00:17:16,535 --> 00:17:22,307 He is a new recruit, young of the year juvenile snook. 215 00:17:22,408 --> 00:17:27,880 Prior to the restoration, the Bonefish and Tarpon Trusts scientists conducted fish 216 00:17:27,980 --> 00:17:32,551 sampling for 16 months at each of the canals. 217 00:17:32,651 --> 00:17:37,289 That way we can compare it before and after restoration to see which specific treatments 218 00:17:37,389 --> 00:17:40,259 are more successful for nursery habitat. 219 00:17:40,359 --> 00:17:50,035 While it is too soon to say if the restoration is successful, the biologists are already 220 00:17:50,135 --> 00:17:53,005 seeing encouraging signs. 221 00:17:53,105 --> 00:17:57,443 From the beginning juvenile snook and tarpon have recruited to these habitats. 222 00:17:57,543 --> 00:18:03,148 And there is an incredible amount of prey fish for them there. 223 00:18:03,248 --> 00:18:07,953 We're seeing all of the same forage fish in the restored ponds as we're seeing in the 224 00:18:08,053 --> 00:18:09,822 natural habitats. 225 00:18:09,922 --> 00:18:14,660 We're catching a lot more juvenile snook and tarpon than we were before the restoration. 226 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:17,196 So that suggests that it is successful. 227 00:18:17,296 --> 00:18:21,500 But it's not about the number of juvenile tarpon and snook you see in those creeks, 228 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:25,204 it's how many survive to leave for the next life stage. 229 00:18:25,304 --> 00:18:30,309 So, if we see a lot of those fish going past the antenna and leaving those back country 230 00:18:30,409 --> 00:18:37,850 spots to join the adult population, then that's a success and that'll take a couple of years 231 00:18:37,950 --> 00:18:44,923 to figure it out. 232 00:18:45,023 --> 00:18:50,395 Tarpon and snook also occur on Florida s east coast, where the juveniles encounter 233 00:18:50,496 --> 00:18:53,265 a unique set of challenges. 234 00:18:53,365 --> 00:19:00,806 There s very, very little left of a natural ecosystem in the Indian River Lagoon. 235 00:19:00,906 --> 00:19:05,377 Compare this to Southwest Florida where a lot of the habitat is still relatively natural. 236 00:19:05,477 --> 00:19:11,984 The Indian River Lagoon most of its mangroves something like 85 percent are in impoundments. 237 00:19:12,084 --> 00:19:16,755 This entire area before the 1950s was known as mosquito country. 238 00:19:16,855 --> 00:19:19,091 It was unlivable for most people. 239 00:19:19,191 --> 00:19:23,529 Before the impoundments were here the saltmarsh mosquitoes made life very challenging. 240 00:19:23,629 --> 00:19:30,202 They would come up in literally in the billions. 241 00:19:30,302 --> 00:19:35,641 Starting in the 1950s berms were built around the salt marshes and mangroves in this part 242 00:19:35,741 --> 00:19:41,980 of the state to help control rampant mosquito populations and make the region more habitable 243 00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:44,082 for humans. 244 00:19:44,183 --> 00:19:50,722 They have these circular impoundments, when the water levels start going down they fill 245 00:19:50,822 --> 00:19:53,492 them up with water. 246 00:19:53,592 --> 00:19:59,565 The salt marsh mosquito needs exposed mud to lay their eggs and to reproduce. 247 00:19:59,665 --> 00:20:05,938 And by having water in these impounded areas year-round, it essentially interrupts the 248 00:20:06,038 --> 00:20:10,108 life cycle of the salt marsh mosquito. 249 00:20:10,209 --> 00:20:13,946 And it did a really good job of inhibiting mosquitos from breeding. 250 00:20:14,046 --> 00:20:20,552 There are well over a hundred mosquito control impoundments on the Indian River Lagoon. 251 00:20:20,652 --> 00:20:27,392 By the 1980s several scientists and managers realized the impoundments were nurseries for 252 00:20:27,492 --> 00:20:29,628 much more than mosquitos. 253 00:20:29,728 --> 00:20:35,434 They are nurseries for tarpon, for snook, for all different kinds of fish species and 254 00:20:35,534 --> 00:20:41,707 isolating all of these nurseries was not good for the fish populations. 255 00:20:41,807 --> 00:20:48,547 So they came up with a project of putting culverts in and connecting these impoundments 256 00:20:48,647 --> 00:20:52,484 back to the lagoon system. 257 00:20:52,584 --> 00:20:58,023 This made it possible for fish to move back and forth in the wintertime, when water levels 258 00:20:58,123 --> 00:21:00,892 are high. 259 00:21:00,993 --> 00:21:06,331 Then in the summertime, they'd close off the gates, pump the impoundment full of water, 260 00:21:06,431 --> 00:21:09,067 and now they could control mosquitoes. 261 00:21:09,167 --> 00:21:13,739 And they just assumed that as long as they had the impoundments open for much of the 262 00:21:13,839 --> 00:21:18,143 year, they served a perfectly good nursery function. 263 00:21:18,243 --> 00:21:22,881 About five years ago, we decided to really test that and see when and how do juvenile 264 00:21:22,981 --> 00:21:29,921 fish leave these impoundments and go back and join their regular population. 265 00:21:30,022 --> 00:21:35,861 To do so, the scientists teamed up with the Indian River Land Trust, which owns many of 266 00:21:35,961 --> 00:21:40,699 the mangrove shorelines where mosquito impoundments can be found. 267 00:21:40,799 --> 00:21:47,472 To date the Land Trust has protected 1200 acres and 12 miles of lagoon shoreline. 268 00:21:47,572 --> 00:21:52,377 Probably about seven or 800 acres is in mosquito control impoundments. 269 00:21:52,477 --> 00:21:57,115 And each impoundment is managed by the Indian River Mosquito Control District. 270 00:21:57,215 --> 00:22:01,820 They're a great partner because they understand that science should always be looked at so 271 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,358 that we can try to manage these impoundments the best way we can for the fish and wildlife 272 00:22:06,458 --> 00:22:09,394 habitat. 273 00:22:09,494 --> 00:22:15,167 Past research is unaltered mangrove creeks showed that snook tended to leave their juvenile 274 00:22:15,267 --> 00:22:18,070 habitat after a year. 275 00:22:18,170 --> 00:22:21,206 Which is the next summer after those larvae came into the creeks. 276 00:22:21,306 --> 00:22:23,542 They didn t leave the creeks during the winter. 277 00:22:23,642 --> 00:22:28,780 So that means that the impoundments are disconnected from the estuary when the juveniles needed 278 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:30,816 to come and go. 279 00:22:30,916 --> 00:22:37,122 Knowing this, the scientists set up an experiment at the Indian River Land Trust s Bee Gum 280 00:22:37,222 --> 00:22:39,524 Point Preserve. 281 00:22:39,624 --> 00:22:43,128 The basic idea was to let's catch a juvenile fish. 282 00:22:43,228 --> 00:22:45,263 Let's put little tags in them. 283 00:22:45,364 --> 00:22:49,401 And let's track their movement in and out of these impoundments. 284 00:22:49,501 --> 00:22:54,773 And much to our surprise, even though we tagged hundreds and hundreds of juvenile fish, very 285 00:22:54,873 --> 00:22:59,745 few of these fish left the impoundments during the fall, winter, early spring when the impoundments 286 00:22:59,845 --> 00:23:05,650 were open, but shortly after they closed off the impoundments pumped them full of water, 287 00:23:05,751 --> 00:23:11,156 now we're getting all kinds of detections on our antennas on the inside of the culvert 288 00:23:11,256 --> 00:23:14,559 saying, Hey, I'm looking for a way out of here and they couldn't get out. 289 00:23:14,659 --> 00:23:16,361 They were stuck. 290 00:23:16,461 --> 00:23:20,899 So we were perplexed at first what to do, and we talked to mosquito control and they 291 00:23:20,999 --> 00:23:27,539 agreed to open up the impoundment, open up the gates, allow water to go flooding through 292 00:23:27,639 --> 00:23:30,442 for a week. 293 00:23:30,542 --> 00:23:36,681 And then they close the gates off again, pump it full of water, and go back to controlling 294 00:23:36,782 --> 00:23:38,550 mosquitoes. 295 00:23:38,650 --> 00:23:43,255 And it was amazing within the first 24 hours of opening these flood gates, we had massive 296 00:23:43,355 --> 00:23:48,560 numbers of juvenile snook, juvenile tarpon, all flooding out of the impoundment. 297 00:23:48,660 --> 00:23:53,632 Once the juveniles reach out to certain size after about a year they can no longer grow 298 00:23:53,732 --> 00:23:55,667 well in this mosquito control impoundment. 299 00:23:55,767 --> 00:24:04,009 So it's time to move on. 300 00:24:04,109 --> 00:24:10,715 Given the success of the experiment, the research is now being expanded to other areas. 301 00:24:10,816 --> 00:24:17,122 We're repeating it in Bee Gum, we re going to do it in two other mosquito control impoundments 302 00:24:17,222 --> 00:24:19,124 here in Indian River County. 303 00:24:19,224 --> 00:24:24,362 And if it's effective in all three impoundments, now we've got something we can go to the managers 304 00:24:24,463 --> 00:24:29,634 and say, Hey, look, this is really worth adding to your management strategy playbook. 305 00:24:29,734 --> 00:24:33,538 And the Mosquito Control District is willing to work with the Land Trust, to open these 306 00:24:33,638 --> 00:24:54,593 culverts periodically in the summer to allow for the fish emigration. 307 00:24:54,693 --> 00:25:01,566 The sunshine state s unique coastal ecosystems, and the fishing opportunities they provide, 308 00:25:01,666 --> 00:25:05,871 are unrivaled in the continental United States. 309 00:25:05,971 --> 00:25:10,408 One of the things that brings a huge number of people to Florida is a quality of life. 310 00:25:10,509 --> 00:25:15,814 Certainly, you come to Florida for the weather and for the water. 311 00:25:15,914 --> 00:25:22,120 But as more and more people head south to experience the Florida lifestyle, many of 312 00:25:22,220 --> 00:25:28,627 the natural qualities that attracted them in the first place are in decline. 313 00:25:28,727 --> 00:25:31,930 That lifestyle is entirely dependent on a functioning ecosystem. 314 00:25:32,030 --> 00:25:36,835 So, as those habitats are degraded our quality of life declines as well. 315 00:25:36,935 --> 00:26:14,573 We want to be able to protect it and keep it going for generations. 316 00:26:14,673 --> 00:26:20,378 Major funding for this program was provided by The Batchelor Foundation, encouraging people 317 00:26:20,478 --> 00:26:26,518 to preserve and protect America s underwater resources. 318 00:26:26,618 --> 00:26:32,891 Additional funding was provided in loving memory of David G. Parrot, by the Parrot Family 319 00:26:32,991 --> 00:26:36,991 Endowment for Environmental Education.